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Dec. 27, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
December 27, 2007, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 podcast.
Yep, I'm the guest host today.
Is there anybody in America who's any radio host in America is actually doing his job this week?
I mean, this is the week that if you're at all talented, you don't work.
It doesn't matter what line of work you're in, if you have any ability at all, and therefore any leverage in your workplace, you don't work this week.
You don't work the week between Christmas and New Year's.
Those of us who are working are those of us who haven't quite made it.
Yeah, I that's right.
I'm a journeyman.
I am a journeyman.
Well, I'm not doing my own program this week because in my own small sphere, Milwaukee, I'm big enough that of course, well, I don't know work the week between Christmas and New Year's, but I'm still small enough that I therefore work for someone else between Christmas and New Year's.
So I'm working for Rush.
And I'm presuming that Rush didn't Rush didn't work yesterday, and you had somebody else in here then.
And it's just guest host week, and people who listen to talk radio are dialing around and they're not hearing anyone they're expecting to hear on any radio station anywhere, and po dunk whatever, Bill.
There's some guest host on sitting in for the guest host who's, of course, not working this week.
So anyway, I am here on I'm going to do my best to uh uphold the high standards of the Rush Limbaugh program, and it is good to be back.
We do need to open the program today with some comments on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, if you did not hear, uh they did get her today.
There isn't anyone who's surprised by this.
On my own program in Milwaukee, when she returned from exile to Pakistan, I was discussing the political dynamics in Pakistan, a nation that really has three sides, the terrorists, the people in the middle, which I guess is represented by the current leader Musharraf, and the anti-terrorists, the reformers, the Benazir Bhutto wing of Pakistan.
And when she returned to that country, it was just a matter of when she was going to be assassinated.
Her only hope was to gain full power so she'd have all of the security forces surrounding her, but in order to get power, you've got to go out and appear in public.
She was at a rally today.
And that's when they got her.
It was a foregone conclusion.
This word is thrown around too lightly, but she is a martyr.
She had to know when she returned to her country that it was at least 50-50 that she would be killed.
I mean, face it, this is Pakistan is a country in which there is an enormous pro-terror contingent, but they apparently aren't in the majority.
It's just large.
But they're not in the majority.
In the meantime, you've got Musharraf, who simply has his finger trying to plug the leak in his nation.
He's trying to balance everything.
He's trying to balance the relationship with the United States.
He's trying to balance the terrorists in his country, trying to keep them from being too mad at him so they don't go after him, and he's trying to balance those people who want to live in the modern world.
Remember that Pakistan borders India, a nation that is seeing a tremendous economic boom right now.
There are a lot of people in Pakistan who are wondering, well, why aren't we getting all of that?
And the Pakistanis and the Indians hate each other.
So he's trying to juggle all of these things.
That's Besharf, and here comes Benazir Bhutto, traipsing into the country saying that she wants to return to power and that Musharraf isn't doing enough to control the terrorists.
Well, Musharraf doesn't want to hear that.
He doesn't want her back because she threatens his power.
And the terrorists don't want to hear it.
We are so insulated in the United States.
And I think a lot of this is just denial.
We do not want to accept how evil the Islamist movement is.
Not Islamic, Islamist.
The wing of Islam that wants a holy war.
We are in total denial about it.
We don't want to confront it.
We simply can't fathom that there could be millions and millions of people who are willing to kill you just because they disagree with you.
Well, the Arab world deals with this every day.
And Pakistan is a nation in which there isn't a real firm grasp on power.
Benazir Bhutto was very, very popular.
On the other hand, the polar opposites of her, the terrorists have tremendous support as well.
So it was only a matter of time before they would get her.
Now we don't know who killed her.
It's no doubt either the terrorists, some wing of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda sympathizers, or perhaps forces close to the leader of the country, Musharraf, and a lot of people in Pakistan are apparently blaming him.
There are riots going on, and I'm sure it's going to be a very, very difficult time there.
The people who supported Benazir Bhutto see that their dream of reform, they have been killed with her, and they're furious about it.
This is a huge struggle.
We see it in Iraq all the time.
But it's even more profound in nations like Pakistan.
The challenge for those of us in the rest of the world is that if this pro-terror movement, this Islamist movement, can gain control of total countries the way they've already gained control of Iran, the way they pretty much have control of Syria, if they can grab entire countries like Pakistan, you're talking about dealing with an international force that simply wants to kill everyone else and having real power, having standing armies, having countries behind them.
And I think a lot of people would like to, oh, it's on the other side of the world, they're always killing each other over there, and pretend that it isn't happening.
Well, it is happening.
The other thing that just strikes you about Benazir Bhutto, who, as I said, I think is a martyr.
While some of her stands may be political, and I'm not naive enough to think that she wasn't motivated in part by wanting power.
She had to know that taking the positions that she took threatened her own life.
You compare that with the American presidential campaign, and I'm going to include both parties here, in which you see focus groups and tailoring of messages to try to make sure to hone your message to tell the people exactly what they want to hear.
You can't even find one or two Republican or any party's presidential candidates willing to go into Iowa and oppose subsidies for ethanol.
Well, imagine going into Pakistan and saying that you're opposed to terrorism.
And I think one of the things that people are really reaching out for, at least among Republicans, not Democrats, I don't think they care about issues, is you're looking for some commitment, some passion, some notion that you really do believe in something.
On the other hand, the candidates know that if they dare take a position or dare take a stand that offends too many people will turn away from them.
Well, for better or worse, she lived and died by living her beliefs.
Here in the United States, I think that since we haven't had any real terrorism since 9-11, those who would like to pretend that the problem isn't there, have been given some peace of mind, but then you see stories like this, and it doesn't take a great leap to realize that Pakistan could now fall into civil war.
You've got Musharf, who's now going to be despised by all of the pro-reform people, the people who supported Benazir Bhutto, because they're going to blame him, and that's going to make the terrorists who'd love to see Musharraf knocked off so they can take power, they're going to smell blood by seeing weakness in Musharf.
The whole country could be in big trouble.
It not only affects us, it affects the entire world.
It's the issue of our time.
And I don't want to be too pessimistic because I realize this is an optimistic program, but it makes you wonder if any Islamic nation is going to be able to control terrorism.
The people who have concerns about Iraq, the sincere people, Not those who have concerns about Iraq for purely political purposes.
Bush started the war, therefore I'm against it.
Those people who have sincere concerns about whether or not we can ever achieve true success in Iraq, take a look at a lot of these Islamic nations and say they are unsolvable.
Shiites and Sunnis killing one another.
Then you've got Kurds and they're fighting with the Turks on the border.
They can't get along.
That's the perception, at least from the outside, and I understand where it's coming from.
In most of the rest of the world, the non-Islamic world, terrorism isn't an acceptable ideology.
Where else in the world do you see a pro-terror movement?
You could say perhaps in Northern Ireland for a while.
But it was always viewed there, even by the proponents of terrorism, as a short-term tactic to achieve a long-term victory, but nowhere else do you see terrorism as being an accepted ideology.
But in the Islamic world, this is so strong right now that you fear that none of them are going to be able to control it.
Look at Saudi Arabia, which is not exactly a poster child for a good modern country.
You wonder if the Saudis are going to be able to keep control of their own country.
Whether or not we're successful in Iraq or not, it's certainly an enormous challenge.
And I don't know what the real answers are.
What I do know is that this is a problem that is very, very important to the United States, and one that we have to be very diligent about because these problems will spread to our country because the terrorist world doesn't know boundaries.
They got Afghanistan at one point and lost it, and they want to get it back.
They're terrified of losing Iraq, and they want to keep it.
The other point that I want to make about this, and I'm not going to make the entire program of Benazir Bhutto program because there isn't a lot more you can say about this.
The other point I want to make, though, is what threatened the terrorists about Bhutto.
What threatened them was her popularity.
They were going to hold, they were supposed to be elections in Pakistan.
Terrorists hate democracy.
They hate democracy.
They hate the notion that the public can actually decide on its own who's in power.
Terrorists fight their battles for power by killing people.
They hate democracy.
This is why they're so threatened by Iraq.
For all the people who have opposed President Bush's courageous decision to go to Iraq and try to win, do understand that this is the one thing the terrorists think can beat them.
If every nation chooses its own leaders, even in the most radical Islamic nation, would the terrorists ever win?
I don't know.
If they held an election in Iran and there was a pro-terror party running on the ballot in Iran, would it win?
Maybe it would.
I don't know.
But the terrorists know that it might not.
The thing that bothered them about Bhutto was that here you had the potential of somebody winning an election and being legitimized by the masses.
Well, if she's the legitimate leader, what then are they?
This is why Iraq is important.
This is why Al Qaeda has flooded into Iraq to try to stop the forces of democracy.
This is why they want to foment this hatred between the Sunnis and the Shiites.
They can't survive in a democracy.
And whether or not we prevail in Iraq or not, Bush did get one thing right.
He knows the only way that you can stop terror is by empowering the masses to choose in elections.
I don't know if you can bring democracy to all these nations.
Well that's still for history to judge.
What I do know is that it is the one thing that most threatens terrorists, that the public could stand up and say, we don't want you, we want to go in a different direction.
My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
You know, you come in, you're the guest host, you try not to offend the staff, because frankly, the staff can make you sound like a fool on national radio.
But I am the most high maintenance of the guest hosts, aren't I?
Am I or not?
There may be somebody worse, but you're not going to say who it is for fear that I might then name of that person is.
We're all about the same.
All right, now here's the situation.
I'm in Russia's studio in New York, and the computer monitor that has the names of the callers in the city that they're from, is kind of a little bit behind the long hanging microphone stand, which is normally not a problem.
But the microphone stand is decorated with this fake Christmas stuff, like these fake needles that are on there to put the studio in the festive spirit.
Well, but this garland or whatever it is is blocking my view of the screen, so I can't see the callers' names or cities without moving my head around.
So I mentioned that during the break that I can't really see the screen because of all this Christmas stuff, and Mr. Mamon very, very generously came in and turned on the other computer monitor, but I can tell that this is one of those stories that's going to be told behind the glass window.
Can you believe he made me switch the computer monitor because he didn't like the Christmas decorations?
Now you're going to tell me next, I suppose that Rush put these up himself, and to Saginaw, Michigan and Steve.
Steve, you're on EIB with Mark Delling sitting in for Rush.
Hey Mark, great show.
Thank you.
One comment.
You said that Americans are insulated from problems that happen third world countries.
I'm saying third world countries generically for facts.
I know Bhutto is tragedy that she's killed.
And but my question is this, and I know Pat Buchanan on one of the talk shows the other night was talking about this.
We need to rearrange our military force so that we're not so strung out.
I mean, I'm I'm for protecting our borders, number one, which neither party wants to do.
And we seem to want to go everywhere, every time there's some terrorist action and save them from their own inside problems.
Well, but that that's the flaw.
That's the flaw in your thinking, though.
You're talking about saving them from their own inside problems.
What you presume is that the terrorists don't want to kill us.
Iben Azir Bhutto wasn't killed just to get control of Pakistan for the terrorists.
They want to control everything.
They want to control the entire planet.
You've got to accept what this Islamist movement is.
And I know a lot of people are in denial about it.
They believe that there is only one way to believe.
We've deluded ourselves into thinking that, well, because we support Israel, that that's created this entire animosity in the Islamic world toward the United States.
Well, what explains the killing of their own people?
What explains the conflicts that are what explains them going into Bali and killing people in a disco?
There's no explanation for that for that other than the pure hatred that they have.
They attacked us and they're going to try to do so again.
We've been very fortunate that it hasn't occurred since 9-11.
But what happened today in Pakistan is an indication of how strong and how large this movement is.
They want to get that entire country just as they want to get Iraq, just as they're going to want eventually to get the United States.
You can't put a cap on the hate that is in this movement.
I'm probably I'm aware of that, but I'm just asking you the question is how much stretching do we need?
How much military force do we need to protect the entire world?
And then not even protect our own backyard.
We haven't even locked down our own borders.
We could have terrorism in our own country coming in through Mexico.
I'm not I'm not arguing.
I'm not arguing any of that.
I'm not arguing any of that.
I'm bringing up the Bhutto story in Pakistan today just to indicate to people how strong this movement is and what they are willing to do to get their power.
Benazir Bhutto represented to them the thing that they most despise.
They perceived her as weak.
She doesn't buy into this didn't buy into this jihad nonsense.
She didn't buy into the notion of a holy war.
She didn't buy into the notion that anybody who is a non believer has to be exterminated, and that's why they had to get rid of her.
Thank you for the call.
Monette, Missouri, and Scott.
Scott, you're on EIB.
Hi, thanks for taking my call.
Uh I had a little bit of a comment on the uh Islamists being the terror purveyors of the world.
Well you go back and read a little bit of history, and maybe they got the idea from Israel when they were forming the country back in 48, because that's kind of how they pushed the British out.
Yeah, that that that's the cop-out that's always used.
If only we can blame anyone but them, blame the Israelis for starting it.
They gave them the idea.
What we do not want to accept, and you can hear it from callers here, is that this movement itself is inherently evil, and it's not because of anyone other than their own attitudes.
Mark Ellen for Rush.
You know when they conduct those polls, you'll always what do you believe, this or that or the other thing are you undecided?
Every poll, there's always five or six percent that are listed as undecided.
I've never really understood that since I have an opinion on everything.
How can you be undecided?
What's your stance on this?
Well, I'm kind of undecided.
There's something going on right now with Republicans.
Walk up to a Republican someone that you know is a Republican or somebody who normally votes for Republicans and ask them who they support for president.
I'm telling you, none of them know.
I'm going through this on my own program in Milwaukee.
I have an entire staff of two.
I have a guy who does traffic, and I have a producer who screens the calls, unlike Rush, who has a staff of 85 million people here.
And I've been trying to get them to explain or decide who they support for president.
Well, I don't know.
Do I have to decide yet?
And they're wringing their hands in there all over the map.
This is how all Republicans are right now.
And here's a story from the Associated Press today.
And it kind of proves my point.
Four and ten Republican voters say they have switched candidates in the past month alone.
Four and ten, just in the past month, that they were supporting someone at the beginning of the month and they're supporting someone else now that we're approaching the end of the month.
The survey goes on to say that many of these people say they expect that they're going to change their minds again.
So you've got this thing very, very much in flux right now.
I think there are a lot of reasons for this.
The first is that people are being forced to make this decision earlier than they want to make it.
This is a screwed-up process, but it's the process that we have.
People who follow college football, they don't like the fact that there isn't a playoff.
Well, there isn't a playoff.
The system that we have is the system that you've got to follow, and you're either going to like it or you're not going to like it, but it's there.
Well, a lot of people resent having to decide in December who they support for president.
Some people say, well, my primary election isn't until February or March or April, well, then you're not going to be involved in the decision anyway.
If you care about what happens, you kind of have to make a decision now.
If you're wondering where I'm coming from on this, I personally support Fred Thompson for president.
Ah, your guy isn't going to win.
I know I get that all the time.
At least I have an answer.
When somebody asks me who do you support, I say I support Fred Thompson.
I'm okay with several of the other Republicans who are running for president, but Fred Thompson is my guy.
At least I've made a decision.
But people are having a real, real hard time with this.
A harder time than are the Democrats.
One of the reasons, as I said, is they resent the fact that they're being forced to decide right now.
But secondly, I think most Republicans want to choose the right person.
And none of the candidates out there has struck them as being the right person.
Maybe they're being too picky.
But it's important to them to not mess this up.
Contrast this with the Democrats.
Most Democrats don't care that much if it's Hillary or Obama or Edwards.
They're going to be okay with any of the three.
The reason is they care about one thing.
They care about winning.
And they think that any of the three could probably win.
So they're not going to be in this angst that you see many Republicans are.
The Democrats have chosen Hillary, okay, they've Chosen Hillary.
If it's Obama, they're going to be off that Hillary bandwagon so fast.
She's going to sink like a lead balloon.
If Edwards would somehow win Iowa, you watch the people who scurry over to there, and there aren't going to be any long faces, oh, well, Hillary didn't get it, it's Edwards.
They're fine with any of them.
Because all they care about is winning.
They don't care about issues.
Listen to the Democratic candidates.
What issues are they even talking about?
What disagreement is there in the Democratic field right now on anything?
You contrast that with the Republicans, where the only thing anyone is talking about is issues.
The people who have a problem with Giuliani have a problem with his stance on issues.
They don't like his stand on abortion.
They think that he's soft on gun control.
They think he's soft on gay marriage.
The people who have a problem with Huckabee don't like the fact that he's a warmed over John Edwards on a lot of economic issues.
The people who have a problem with Mitt Romney are concerned that he doesn't deeply hold some of the beliefs that he's espousing.
They look back and they say, well, he's flip-flopping.
He doesn't share my beliefs on these issues.
He's just saying these things.
These are the concerns.
The people who have concerns about McCain take a look at the John McCain track record and they see things that he has done and stands that they have taken that he has taken that they don't agree with.
They don't like the fact that McCain didn't support the Bush tax cuts.
They don't like the fact that he was not there with Bush on the judges.
But these are issues that are driving these people.
They want to get the right candidate.
Well, you're not going to get the perfect candidate.
It just isn't going to happen.
You're not going to find someone that you agree with on everything.
Now I've kind of made a pact with myself that I don't want to antagonize all the Huckabee supporters in Russia's audience by just trashing Mike Huckabee, but I've got concerns about Mike Huckabee for a lot of reasons.
But they're based on issues.
They're based on my belief about the direction of the country on any uh my beliefs on the direction of the country on any number of issues.
And I think that what's going on among these Republican voters who are changing their mind and flopping all over the place is healthy.
People are trying to decide who the right person is because they do care about things more than just winning.
They care about these issues.
And that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
To Detroit and Kevin, Kevin, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Mark, how are you today?
I'm great, thank you.
Great, thank you.
Um I basically think there should be a bumper sticker that says presidential contenders, Republicans five, Democrats zero, because uh, and that's why Republicans are sort of undecided.
They're they're waiting to see who the who's gonna be the leader in the in the uh caucus or or whatever vote uh well the fact of the matter is is that the Republican Party, and you can go into all this debate about big 10 small ten, the Republican candidates have disagreements on almost everything.
I don't know if there's an issue out there in which all of the Republicans have the same point of view.
You can crass that with the echo chamber that's the Democratic race.
They agree on everything.
They say Bush is bad, we need to elevate the middle class, we need to empower all Americans, all these platitudes that don't mean anything.
When it comes to an issue that you can't get them to talk about Iraq, who opposed the war first?
No, nothing on how you solve the problem.
You can't get them to talk about how we're going to deal with the fact that Social Security eventually is going to move toward a deficit.
They don't have any stands on that.
Get them to talk about tax policy, and all they'll argue about is that Bush rewarded, all they'll say is, well, Bush rewarded the rich, and they'll all nod their heads.
There are no disagreements over there.
They simply throw out the applause lines that make their base happy.
On the Republican side, you have right now a real debate over real issues.
I think we need a new communicator like we had with Ronald Reagan.
And I don't think you see that in the Republican Party right now.
No, you don't.
But you know what?
Can I pick on you, Kevin?
Sure.
Do I have your permission to pick on you?
See, in my own program in Milwaukee, I wouldn't ask for that, but I'm on Russia's program.
I am so tired of Republicans looking for Reagan.
You know what?
Reagan's dead.
And Reagan was a once-in-a-lifetime figure.
Reagan was one of the greatest politicians in American history.
He was charismatic.
He had viewpoints.
He came around at a time in which the country needed him.
He was a very, very special president and a very special politician.
But that's what made him special is that a lot of people aren't like him.
Most presidents that we've produced out of both parties didn't have the skill of Reagan.
A lot of them were people who lacked all charm whatsoever.
They've all been flawed.
You're not going to find another Reagan.
He's not out there.
One of the reasons I think that many people are attracted to Huckabee is that he is smooth.
He is eloquent.
He does talk a good game.
He does present the kind of image that can inspire people.
He does all of those things, but this constant search for Reagan is like the Democrats who were looking for another JFK until they found Clinton.
There isn't a holy grail out there.
Ronald Reagan isn't going to run this time around.
The field is the one that you have, and you're going to have to decide who amongst that field is the one that you do support.
Thank you for the call.
I asked his permission to pick on him with this.
Well, we need another Reagan.
We need another Reagan.
Tell you something else.
I was around when Reagan was president.
All these people that are lionizing Reagan now, they were pretty frustrated with him six years into his presidency.
Ronald Reagan in his second term of office was almost as unpopular as Bush is now.
Aran Conference was going on, the 1986 tax increase that people don't want to remember.
I love Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan changed the world.
But he wasn't perfect either.
But we've created this idealized image of Reagan that he was this incredibly charismatic conservative who was right on everything and won every battle.
didn't, you're not going to find a perfect candidate.
What you can find, though, is someone who is qualified to run this country and somebody who's right on most of the issues.
And that's something that the Democrats right now can't say.
To Minneapolis and Bill Bill, it's your turn on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Go ahead, Bill.
What I'd like to point out is that uh people should be involved in their uh caucuses, in their primaries and conventions because of their local representatives and their local congressmen, and try to pick the most conservative version of those people they can and uh be less worried about the president level, realizing, at least for most of us, that uh that's going to be decided before we get there.
Well, you're right.
Whether you like this process or not, if you don't live in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina or maybe Michigan or Florida, you're not going to have any input into this thing.
But, you know, I don't play for the Green Bay Packers, but I'm a fan of the Packers.
I still want them to win.
I still have desires about what's going to happen, but in terms of actively participating, unless you're somebody who writes out a check, most of us don't have a role in this.
We're choosing candidates, and we're excluding almost all of the country.
And I I don't like the system at all.
And it's happening way too soon.
But it is the system that we have.
And it's going to produce a Republican candidate for president, and it's going to produce a Democratic candidate for president, as screwed up as this system is, and I do want it to work out.
My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
This is the week where all of America is on vacation, including Rush Limbaugh.
That's why I'm here.
My name is Mark Billing.
Doing the program from behind the golden microphone in New York.
There are basic social codes that we all have that allows us to live in mass and still be together.
Every time I come to New York, I'm amazed that people don't bump into one another on the streets.
I mean, hordes coming in each direction, and nobody ever seems to smack into one another.
You kind of know what the rules are and stay to the right and get out of the way and keep your head up and know what you're doing.
Well, here's what.
The security line at the airport, after you've gotten through the point in which you show your ID, but you're waiting to go and put your stuff through the scanners, right?
Let's suppose there's a group of eight of you, and two or three of you get in ahead of the others.
Do the other four or five get to jump ahead and join the two or three who are farther up in the security line?
Now, Norm, when you're at a buffet, if somebody's in front of you, it's kind of accepted that you can go and join them and stand in line with them there and in most other lines, if somebody's ahead, we kind of allow their friends or their family members to go join them, right?
What about the security line?
You say no.
You say no too.
It's unanimous, two to nothing.
They say, well, as you might guess, I'm at the airport in Milwaukee, and there are three people in front of me.
There are a lot of people in front of me, three people in particular.
And all of a sudden, here come four other people who know these three, and they all plop in front of me.
Now, of course, this being the Midwest, nobody's going to say anything, and the line wasn't that long.
Maybe the wait was about ten minutes.
I was looking at ten minutes in front of me, that's all.
But uh, this isn't right.
You don't this line is not, you don't get to jump in front of this line.
We allow you to go to the front of that line if you're flying first class, if you have the frequent flyer thing, but you don't get to save places in the security line.
Plus, there's four of them.
They didn't need to be with these three.
It wasn't like it was a kid going up to join mom and dad or the mother in law.
There are four other people and they join the three that are there.
All right, well, now they're in front of me.
I've got my stuff and I'm plopping on the ground because I don't want to keep holding my stuff.
Do you believe that this woman ste one of these four that jumps in the line, kind of steps backward because they're all crowded because there's now seven of them there, and steps on my computer.
Stepped right on my computer, and I'm kind of holding her to stop her from falling, and she looks at me like I've somehow screwed up.
The entire process of traveling in the United States is getting harder all the time.
To Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Pat.
Pat, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Good afternoon.
Hi.
Hi.
Um I called in, I just wanted to say that um I wanted to express my frustration, and that I, you know, you were talking earlier about people having a problem identifying who they want to support.
Republicans, yeah.
Yeah, and the race for president.
And um I think the people have a difficult time identifying who it is that they want to um rally behind because I think all the candidates that we had to choose from are suffering from their own identity crises.
How do you mean that?
Well, I I think they've they've spent a whole lot of time trying to target special groups that they want to align themselves with, and in the process, they've managed to blur who they really are.
Yeah, I think that's very, very good.
Now, I don't know if you were listening earlier in the hour, but I talked about the assassination of Venezia Bhutto, and whether you like her or not, she essentially died because of her views.
And you get that sense now in American politics that everybody is programmed.
Now, I don't think it's entirely true.
I think that you can gauge where many of these people are.
I I look at Giuliani and I think that everything that he's stating he believes in, including the things that I disagree with him on.
I like Fred Thompson.
I think that what he's saying are the things that he truly believes.
But you're right.
On some of these issues, they seem like they're pushing certain buttons because they think there's a political edge in it.
I think, for example, on immigration, where none of these candidates has a strong record as a hardliner on immigration, none of them.
All of a sudden, there's a lot of tough guys there on that issue.
Well, that seems clearly programmed and clearly formatted.
And you're right, that's something that's giving a lot of people pause.
But you're not going to find a perfect field of candidates for president, just as you're never going to see a perfect field of applicants for a job that you have.
In the end, you just kind of have to make a decision.
Thank you for the call.
My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush.
I'm told that I have just a little bit more than a minute in this segment.
Well, I want to kiss up to everybody in the audience because I all want you all to keep listening.
But those of you in Texas, I'm going to say nice things about you in the next hour of the program.
I I I've got to do this item, even though, as I said, I made this pact with myself.
I'm reading a story here from the political.
You know, Mike Huckabee, since he left the governorship of Arkansas, he, like a lot of other politicians, has been giving speeches.
And if you're gonna hire somebody to give a speech, Huckabee's got to be near the top of the lift because he he gives a mean speech.
Do you this story says he's still doing paid speeches?
He's running for he's got two or three events lined up in February where he's going to be paid his normal fee of twenty-five thousand dollars.
He's doing paid speeches while running for president.
What other politician would try to pull something like that?
The only guy who could get away with that would be Clinton, the real Clinton.
He's the only I am telling you, the more you look at Huckabee, same hometown, he's Clinton again.
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