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Dec. 6, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:21
December 6, 2007, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings, my fellow Americans, and music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
Fastest week in media.
Can you believe it's already Thursday?
And it is the EIB network, Rush Limboy, here behind the Golden EIB microphone.
Great to be with you, folks, today, as I know you find it great to be with me.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Australia has done a 180 on Kyoto.
Once they got to the meeting in Bali and found out what it would do to their economy, this new socialist prime minister over there backed out.
Not going to do it.
One of the greatest editorials or op-eds I have read about the whole purpose of the UN-led global warming movement appears today in the Canadian Financial Post.
It's by Peter Foster.
We'll get to that.
Also, Bill Clinton saying he'll only sit in on cabinet meetings if his wife wants him to.
Obama and the double O, Obama and the Oprah, an 18,000-seat stadium not big enough for an Oprah event.
They got to move it somewhere.
All of this is coming up, plus more fallout for the national intelligence estimate today.
I apparently was taken to task on PMSNBC last night for suggesting that there might have been a political reason, a motivation behind the key judgment that the Iranians stopped their nuclear program in 2003.
And they brought on that noted defense specialist, Arianna Huffington.
To, yes, to, it's all coming up, it's all coming up.
But I tell you what, lots of other stuff, too.
I want to start with Mitt Romney today.
Mitt Romney's speech.
Frankly, I thought what we saw today, folks, was a Republican candidate for president give an inspiring speech.
It was an inspiring speech about American values, including religion.
Mitt Romney did this because he has been relentlessly attacked as something less than a true American.
I watched this.
I had seen some excerpts from the speech published before he made it.
I thought he was inspiring, folks.
I think he said exactly the right tone.
And I am stunned by some of the criticism I am seeing of this speech, particularly on some conservative website.
He didn't include atheists.
He didn't include agnostics.
He didn't say and reach out to Hindus.
I don't understand it.
Of all things to take from this speech that Romney gave today, that he didn't reach out to atheists and didn't reach out to agnostics is beyond me.
I thought that he showed today his ability to confront, to articulate, to persuade, and to lead.
He also demonstrated he is more than willing to take a huge risk.
Everybody, from his advisors on down, saying, don't do this speech until after you've won a primary someplace or until you've won the nomination.
Don't do this speech now.
Too much can go wrong with it.
Bob Novak had a column today saying, I don't know what's going to happen here.
There's nothing.
What can he say?
Well, he said a lot of things.
You know, it's amazing how Drive-By Media going gaga over empty suits like Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Neither of those candidates can hold a candle to any of ours.
Romney, Rudy, Fred Thompson, Huckabee, none of them.
They're empty suits compared to our son.
For our side to sit here and start talking, but he didn't address atheists.
Let's start with the audio sound bites and let's go to the precedent for this.
This is September 12, 1960, in Houston at the Rice Hotel.
Presidential candidate J.F.K. addressing the Greater Houston Ministerial Association about being a Catholic.
We put together here just a little montage.
But because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured.
I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.
I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Now let's go to the drive-bys and their analysis prior to the speech being given, a montage today from CNN and ABC and PMS NBC.
Mitt Romney speaks out on religion, but don't expect him to explain his Mormon beliefs.
Romney isn't expected to focus on specific teachings.
If people are looking for him to explain the specific doctrines of his faith, the Mormon religion, they will be disappointed.
Do not expect him to talk about how he prays.
He does not intend to sort of uncloak the mysteries of Mormonism.
You can tell what this is all about.
These people are hoping like hell that they can destroy him because of his Mormonism and scare people and set it up in advance that he's not going to be honest, that he's not going to be forthcoming, and that he's got something to hide.
It didn't come off that way at all.
We've got some soundbite excerpts, and let's just get started.
Here is the first.
Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.
Their authority is theirs within the province of church affairs, and it ends with the affairs of the nation begin.
When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God.
If I'm fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest.
A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.
That was a big we cut the applause in the interest of time here, but there was a lot of it, and there were many applause lines, and a couple of them went on for an extended period of time.
Here's another excerpt: I believe in my Mormon faith, and I endeavor to live by it.
My faith is the faith of my fathers.
I will be true to them and to my beliefs.
Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy.
If they're right, so be it.
But I think they underestimate the American people.
There is one fundamental question about which I'm often asked: What do I believe about Jesus Christ?
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.
Well, you can see he's not reaching out to the atheists here, is he?
He's not reaching out to the agnostics, not reaching out to the Hindus.
I'm still stunned that I read that kind of criticism on some conservative websites today.
Here's another excerpt.
It's important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions.
And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter, on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course.
In recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning.
They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgement of God.
Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life.
It's as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America, the religion of secularism.
They are wrong.
The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square.
We are a nation under God, and in God we do indeed trust.
I tell you, this stuff was, to me, it was inspiring listening to this.
You're listening here to a Republican candidate for president give an inspiring speech about American values in which he's including religion because he's been relentlessly attacked.
This is this, frankly, this is the kind of thing missing from the campaign.
What are we as a country?
Where are we going?
What kind of people are we?
What binds us together?
It isn't health care.
It's not Social Security.
It's not all those little policy wonk things.
It's who we are as a people and our acknowledgement, our founders' acknowledgement, that we are all created by God, and it's that creation from which we have our liberty and our freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
It doesn't come from any other human being.
Those values are not imposed upon us.
They can only be taken away by men, but they are granted to us by virtue of our creation.
This is totally a perfect place for this kind of value speech to be made in a presidential campaign.
One more soundbite.
You can be certain of this.
Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend, an ally in me.
And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen.
We do not insist on a single strain of religion.
Rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith.
Recall the early days of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
During the fall of 1774, with Boston occupied by British troops, there were rumors of imminent hostilities and fears of an impending war.
In this time of peril, someone suggested that they pray, but there were objections.
They were too divided in religious sentiments.
What with Episcopalians and Quakers, Anabaptists and Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Catholics?
Then Sam Adams rose and said he would hear a prayer from anyone of piety and good character as long as they were a patriot.
And so together they prayed and together they fought.
And together, by the grace of God, they founded this great nation.
And the applause there went on and on and on.
Romney also made it a point to say, in regards to prayer, that he will need the prayers of all Americans as President of the United States.
There was nothing exclusionary.
There was nothing threatening.
It was just, it was, I'm telling you, as far as I'm concerned, I think he was inspiring.
I think he set exactly the right tone in these speech.
But back to the people criticizing him and what he said, they really ought to look at themselves in the mirror because what they really seem to be saying, when they say to reach out to the agnostics of the atheists of the Hindus, what they really, I think, seem to be saying is that if you don't share my religion, not my beliefs, but my religion, then you're not qualified to be president.
What they're saying is you can never say enough.
You can never say the right thing because you're not of my religion and therefore you're not qualified to be president.
Look, atheism is a religion, whether they want to believe it is or not.
Agnosticism is too.
If you want to say that he didn't reach out to them or to the Hindus and he's not qualified because he didn't acknowledge them, what kind of analysis is that?
I mean, this is poison, this kind of analysis, coming from conservatives on reputable websites.
And when I saw it, I was distressed by it.
I expect it from liberals.
I expect that kind of reaction.
He didn't address the atheists and the agnostics.
He didn't really explain his religion.
He really didn't explain why he should be nominated and so forth.
All of this that people are saying reveals partisan thinking, the thinking of those who support another candidate.
Not seriously thinking about the nature of the process here and what Romney was trying to do with the speech.
They're looking at this strictly within the confines of a political speech, and I think it went beyond those bounds.
And the critics, and I guess it's quite natural, they put their own agenda into this speech.
He didn't talk about taxes, they're saying.
He didn't talk about electability.
This wasn't a speech about taxes.
This wasn't a speech about electability.
It wasn't a speech about policy.
It was a speech about American values.
What binds us together as a people and as a nation and what will continue to bind us together in the future as a nation.
I have to tell you, I don't endorse candidates in primaries, and this is not an endorsement.
I've said this repeatedly.
But Romney, throughout all of this, you try running around having your religion attacked and threatened and lied about every day, folks, and not get bitter.
And Mitt Romney has not been bitter.
He has not gotten angry.
He easily could have.
He's kept a positive outlook and approach, despite being demeaned and doubted in ways that no other candidate has had to deal with.
More on that, by the way, when we come back from this time out.
Don't go away.
And welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I am your highly trained broadcast specialist.
Don't doubt me.
Just a couple final thoughts here on the Romney speech and the atmosphere surrounding it.
One of the as I mentioned, I don't endorse candidates in primaries, but I really, you know, Romney certainly should have our attention in a good way.
Whether he's the nominee or not, he hasn't been bitter.
He hasn't reacted in an angry way.
And I'll tell you, he has every reason to have done so.
He's been demeaned.
He has been doubted in ways that no other candidate has had to deal with.
And those who continue, even after this speech, to try to pick him apart with attacks on his character, which are really just disguised as supposedly thoughtful in various, should be ashamed of themselves.
But I'll tell you, I don't think one candidate should be singled out this way, frankly.
And this is another thing about this that is very, very irritating to me.
If religion is important in this election, and I guess it is, because the drive-bys of the Democrats have made it important, and they make religion important at every election.
Because I'll tell you, if you, you evangelicals, don't have short memories here.
You were just as hated by the drive-bys as Mitt Romney is.
You're just as despised by the Democrat Party as Mitt Romney is.
And you know it.
You have been the focus of full frontal assaults on your religion for as many years as I can remember being in public life like this.
All the way back to the 80s during the Reagan years, you know how you were portrayed.
You're stupid.
You're hayseed hicks.
You have CNN with questions in a debate with some guy in a basement like the Unabomber holding up the Bible and asking, Do you believe every word in this book?
Like, you idiot, you can't push.
You know how you've been insulted.
You got gun racks in the back of your pickup truck.
You get to church on Saturday night and have a barbecue in the parking lot in order to be first to the pew you want on Sunday.
You go to NASCAR races.
You're missing a couple of front teeth.
You chew tobacco.
And you are stupid.
That's what they think of evangelicals and the so-called Christian right.
And they're dumping on Mitt Romney the same way.
And you have to understand why.
They fear the morality of religion.
They fear the moral guideposts.
They fear that people of faith, whatever the faith is, believe in things larger than themselves.
Liberals, some Democrats think the end all is with them and with humanity, and that there is nothing larger other than right now the environment.
And anybody who knows there is something larger than themselves in this life, anybody who knows that there are questions human beings are capable of asking, but we will never be capable of answering while on this earth, scares liberals to death.
And they can't control people like that.
And they fear what they consider to be the judgmentalism of people like that.
And they fear the standards, both moral and ethical, that people of faith, and I don't care what faith we're talking about, conduct their lives with as best they can.
So it's not just Romney that they are targeting.
It's people of faith who are public about it everywhere.
And they're doing their best to discredit anybody with faith of any kind.
Do you note that the Democrats are never, ever asked about this?
If religion is important in this election in that we want to know how someone's faith may impact their governing, then I think all the candidates need to give a speech of this kind.
All the candidates need to be asked questions like this.
All the candidates need to spell out where they are coming from.
Rudy, McCain, Thompson, Huckabee.
Not just the Republicans either.
Democrats as well.
Democrats mix the pulpit with politics all the time.
They go into church and raise money for campaigns in violation of laws, and nobody calls them on it because of where those churches are.
They mix it all the time, and nobody ever calls them on it, and nobody ever tells them.
Aren't you being a little hypocritical here?
You're out there constantly ripping evangelical Christians in the Christian right, and there you are in a church making speeches, and in Mrs. Clinton's case, using a southern black dialect to talk to the flock that's inside the church.
Where do the Democrats draw the lines on religion and governing?
What do they believe?
How do their religions influence their views?
You know, Harry Reid's a Mormon.
Wonder how Harry Reid feels about his brother Mormon being attacked like this and having to defend himself.
And how come Harry Reid doesn't have to defend his Mormonism in context of how he governs?
Well, Rush, he's not running for president.
I don't care.
He's in public life.
He's got a pretty powerful job.
He's the Senate majority leader.
How come he doesn't have to explain his belief in Mormon?
How come Orrin Hatch doesn't have to?
Understand what this is, folks.
This is an effort to destroy the character and integrity of a good man, a decent man, on the basis of religion.
It's not the America I grew up in.
While having a great time in the process, nice to have you with us here on the EIB network, the Rush Limbaugh program, most listened to radio talk show in America, over 600 fabulous and great radio stations.
By the way, one more thing about Romney, and I want you to forget this.
This was articulate.
It was clear, and it was somewhat courageous.
Everybody telling him not to do this.
He showed leadership doing this today.
He exemplified the characteristics of somebody who is not afraid to lead.
I hope you get a chance at some point to read the whole speech or to at least read it, maybe watch it.
It'll be, I'm sure, replay it on a number of cable outlets.
Moving on, ladies and gentlemen, the NIE fallout continues.
John Bolton today in a great op-ed in the Washington Post, he basically makes the observation here, this NIE that was released on Monday, the key judgment, is essentially rolling out a diplomatics.
Oh, oh, wait, wait, before that.
There's something even more important.
Remember, yesterday we had the report that the three primary authors of the NIE, a key judgment, were State Department officials, one of them disgruntled with apparently some kind of grudge specific to our Iran policy.
And I think this is a Wall Street Journal and the New York Sun both had editorials on this.
Today in the Weekly Standard, actually yesterday afternoon, right after the program ended, just in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, as many recognize, this is from Michael Goldfarb, as many recognize the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program directly contradicts what the U.S. intelligence community was saying just two years previously.
And it appears that the about face was very recent.
Well, how recent?
Well, consider this.
On July 11th of this year, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Finger, one of the three authors of the NIE, gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.
He said, Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us.
The United States' concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran's neighbors.
Said Dr. Finger, Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution.
We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.
This is a grave concern to the other countries in that region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.
Folks, this is back in July.
Back in July, one of the lead authors of the NIE on Monday, which said they've suspended their nuclear program in, what, 2003, told the House Armed Services Committee that they're still procuring nuclear weapons.
The paragraph appeared under the subheading, Iran Assessed as Determined to Develop Nuclear Weapons.
And the entirety of Finger's 22-page testimony was labeled information as of July 11th, 2007.
No part of it is consistent.
No part of it is consistent with the latest NIE, in which we're told that Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure, and they don't know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
Now, the inconsistencies here are more troubling when you realize that according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Finger is one of the three officials who are responsible for crafting the latest NIE.
The journal cites an intelligence source as describing Finger and his two colleagues as hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials.
That's in the New York Sun yesterday.
So if it's true that Dr. Finger played a leading role in crafting the latest NIE, then we have some serious questions here.
For Dr. Finger, why did your opinion change so drastically in just four months' time?
Is the new intelligence or analysis really that good?
Is it good enough to overturn your previous assessments from July?
Or has it never really been good enough to make a definitive assessment at all?
Did your political or ideological leanings or your policy preferences or those of your colleagues influence your opinion in any way?
Do you know the drive-bys have been assessing this unquestioningly without any doubt whatsoever?
Because when the intelligence fits their worldview, boy, it's right on the money.
When the intelligence doesn't fit their worldview, then it's flawed, it's doctored, it's been cooked, or what have you.
This is serious, serious stuff, as I attempted to make clear yesterday.
Now, back to John Bolton, the flaws in the Iran report.
Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported.
It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and overflow of Saddam Hussein, their overthrow.
There wasn't any diplomatic pressure, unless you consider shock and awe, or being labeled as one of the three members of the axis of evil.
As Under Secretary of State for Arms Control in 2003, I, John Bolton, know that we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran.
Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point.
Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments.
The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin Village of Intelligence.
He is right on the money.
We had this great caller, Jennifer, yesterday from California, and she was very clear.
Look, they've gone way beyond the scope of what an intelligence report is.
They're philosophizing and they're advocating and they're suggesting certain things like diplomacy.
And don't forget, we had this poll, just discovered this poll, this Dogby poll yesterday from October 30th.
52% of the American people support an invasion of Iran.
Don't think these clowns didn't know that.
And don't think they didn't see it.
There's so much contradictory here, and there's so much predictable based on what we know that it is you have to common sense, responsibility would require an open mind to be skeptical of this whole NIE.
The Los Angeles Times today has a story, essentially says that the world is puzzled by the NIE reports, the substance, the timing, and so forth.
Should we believe this report?
Many observers were still struggling to understand what the intelligent assessment portends, particularly in Moscow and Beijing.
Analysts were incredulous.
The intelligence agencies would take a stance undercutting the president and theorize that the report might herald a shift in Bush administration's strategy.
We wonder not only in China, but the rest of the world, should we believe this report?
Why now?
What's behind it?
Is this political maneuvering or some sort of power struggle inside the White House?
said Chu Shu Long, professor director of the Institute Strategic Studies at Beijing's Gwinghua University.
And there are countless other stories here.
In fact, the New York Times has a couple today that are just unbelievable.
One, a story reported by David Sanger and Stephen Lee Myers that essentially says, details in military notes led to shift on Iran, U.S. says.
So what's happening here?
Somebody, the New York Times are being leaked to.
There's a little controversy over this now.
So the people behind this, the NIE, are now leaking to favored reporters in the New York Times to sort of explain this away.
But in the process of doing so, the Times reports that some agencies of the 16 in the NIE report are not convinced that Iran stopped the nuclear program.
They have only moderate confidence.
I asked the intelligence expert in the last hour of the program yesterday who called, is it possible when this thing comes out in full, when somebody sees it in full, that we're going to find out that not all 16 agencies are on board?
Yes, it's entirely possible.
It wasn't Jennifer.
It was the previous guy.
I think it was Colley from Texas to whom I asked that question.
And then there is the op-ed in the New York Times today by Valerie Lindsay and Gary Milholland.
Got to wonder what got into the New York Times today.
Two stories, this one an op-ed.
In Iran, we trust.
They basically say that if Iran has stopped its nuke program, what's with 3,000 gas centrifuges or heavy water reactors that use plutonium?
And by the way, yesterday, folks, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedine Izad, said that Islamic Republic, the Iranians, will seek at least 50,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges in order to provide fuel for its nuclear power plants in the future.
He said we need at least 50,000 centrifuges in order to realize our aim of producing our own nuclear fuel.
And he made this speech yesterday in public after the NIE has come out on Monday, and there's hell freezing over in this country about it.
So these people, if Iran, the two authors in the New York Times, if they've stopped their nuke program, what's with 3,000 gas centrifuges or heavy water reactors?
And they note also that the NIE calls for more international pressure to contain Iran, but this report kills those chances.
Listen to this.
This situation is made all the more absurd by the report's suggestion that international pressure offers the only hope of containing Iran.
The report has now made much and such pressure nearly impossible to obtain.
It's hardly surprising that China, which last week seemed ready to approve the next round of economic sanctions against Tehran, has now had a change of heart.
Its ambassador to the UN said yesterday that we all start from the presumption that now things have changed.
No sanctions, no diplomatic tightening, nothing.
It's been shut down by virtue of this report.
Quick time out.
We'll be back and continue after this.
All right, let's dip our toe in the hot box here, folks, and see what's lurking out there.
On the telephones, Mr. Snerdley reports a very tough first half hour screening phone calls.
Give you an example.
One guy actually called and wanted to get on the air because he heard me say that evangelicals are a bunch of missing front teeth hayseed hicks with gun racks in the back of the pickup truck.
Of course, I did say that, but I was repeating and reminding evangelicals in the Christian right, that's what the libs and the drive-by media and the Democrats say of you and think about you.
This guy didn't hear me say that.
He thought he just, you know, those kinds of things irritate Mr. Snerdley to no end.
I can see he was steaming in there, and I knew exactly what it was about.
I knew exactly what he was getting because when we bring the subject up of religion, you get what you get.
And we're not going to put 99.9% of it on.
So I'm now eager to go to the phones and find out just what passed Snerdley's filter here.
That's why this is going to be the hot box.
Chuck in Evansville, Indiana.
You're first.
Welcome to the program.
How are you doing, Rush?
Good.
Are you there?
I'm here.
Okay.
I just wanted to take issue.
Well, actually, I wanted to agree with you.
It's the conservatives, like the website that you mentioned, that are coming down on Romney, that are going to try to destroy him.
Well, you know, You are right about that.
But that's primarily in the context of after this speech.
I don't think the conservatives forced the speech.
I think that what's forcing, well, some Republicans, I guess you'd have to say that it's a Republican primary and so forth.
Absolutely.
Make no mistake, though, Chuck.
Don't discount this reality that the liberals want to destroy everybody of faith.
Hey, wait a minute, Rush, though.
I'm a liberal, and I do not hate religion.
I don't fear religion.
Well, then you're not a full-fledged lib, then.
Absolutely.
Oh, you're not.
You can't be.
I'm as liberal as you go.
You can't be.
I promise you.
I guarantee you.
No, I know you think you are.
No, I know I am.
That's my daughter.
She listens to you all the time, and we talk about it, but I guarantee you I'm liberal.
Liberals don't fear religion.
What we fear is the control of government by any one religion.
How come your religious values, liberal religious values, do not give you that fear then?
But it's not a religion.
I'll tell you what, Rush.
Wait a minute.
We got liberal Catholics.
We have liberal Mormons.
Old Harry Reid's a Mormon.
We've got Jewish people in God.
How come liberal people and their religion doesn't fear you, scare you?
How come you're not worried about their trying to impose their religious views on people?
It's the same reason that you say that the liberals don't have to answer questions about religion.
We have our own religious convictions and we live by them.
We believe what Jesus says.
Wait, Liberals have their own religion?
Religious convictions, whether you're Christian, I mean, whether you're Catholic or liberal.
Liberalism.
Wow, look at what we're learning.
So liberalism is a religion, as I have always thought, is its own religion.
Yes.
No, you're twisting my words.
No, I'm not.
I'm not twisting.
That's not what I said.
Yes, it is.
I'm reading it right here on a transcript.
Right, but Catholic liberals have no fear of Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims or other Christians.
Neither do I. Neither do I.
But wait a minute.
That's not what you said.
You're afraid that conservative, religious people are going to impose their religion when they govern.
And that means you're afraid of religion.
You're afraid of morality.
You're afraid of the guideposts and the guardrails that keep us settled.
That's the primary thing that religion does.
One of them is provide us the roots of our morality and ethics and so forth, in addition to faith and the belief in a creator and things larger than ourselves.
You're being so inconsistent.
If you're going to sit there and say you don't fear the religious beliefs of any Democrat, but you do fear the religious beliefs of Republicans, that's bigoted.
I think Mitt Romney did a great job on his speech.
From what I haven't heard it, except on your program, I think he did a terrific job.
I think that, but I think who he's speaking to are conservative religion, conservative Christians who have little tolerance for people who don't believe just exactly the way they believe.
You know what?
I'm glad you said that because I can understand how a lot of people would think that.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify and amplify remarks and my remarks even more.
I think Mitt Romney was speaking to America today.
And that's what I liked about the speech.
He wasn't speaking just to evangelical Christians or the Christian right.
He was speaking to Americans about the common values of our founding and how those values continue to bind us together and how they are important to maintain.
From that standpoint, it was articulate.
It was filled with leadership.
And it was aimed at the country.
It wasn't aimed at voters in the Northeast, for example, which is why they probably won't like it.
It wasn't aimed at voters in the South.
It wasn't aimed at the health care crowd.
It wasn't aimed at the environmentalist wacko crowd.
It was aimed at the people of this country.
And I think he hit a bullseye.
Well, looky here, folks.
Look at Democrats backing off on Iraq demands again.
Each day lately, Democrats inch closer to giving President Bush more money for the war in Iraq without any serious mandates for withdrawing U.S. troops.
That's in the political today.
The AP has it a different way.
They're all worried, how can they give the money to the president for the war and the troops without making it look like they support either?
To their kook fringe, lunatic religious base.
We just learned that liberalism is a religion.
We've known it all along.
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