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Jan. 25, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:17
January 25, 2008, Friday, Hour #2
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The uh the South Carolina State Election Commission says that you need an ID to vote.
You think they'll enforce that tomorrow?
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Oh, yes, time rolls on.
The fastest three hours in media Rush Limbaugh's meeting and surpassing all audience expectations.
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Your guiding light to times of trouble, confusion, murkyness, tumult, chaos, the perception of a recession when there isn't one, torture, humiliation, depression, suicide, and even the good times.
Open line Friday.
Whatever you wish to discuss is fine with us.
So when we go to the phones, the uh the program is yours.
The telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address rush at EIB net.com.
Let's stick with the uh audio sound bites on the irrelevancy of your host, uh Rush Limbaugh.
Last night, PMS NBC, hardball with Chris Matthews.
They really tore into McCain last night, by the way, on the question that he got about uh Russert said you you've you've said recently that you um you're not really uh that versed in economics.
And McCain said something, I don't know, I don't remember saying, oh where you got that.
I don't think I've said that.
And so the Romney camp uh produced an email immediately with the very quote, and it's like six weeks ago.
Uh anyway, this is Chuck Todd, the uh political director at NBC about the Republican presidential primary.
Uh Chuck Todd says that this is about the Republicans and Rush.
I'm hearing from more and more Republicans conservative.
Look, Limbaugh's been taken after McCain.
I mean, look, he's got to get this victory because if he doesn't get out of here, you do wonder if the conservative establishment is finally going to rally around Mitt Romney.
Romney has tried to get these folks to rally around him.
They haven't quite done it.
If he wins in Florida, they may rally around him and it may be enough to stop.
No, a lot of this is the first time that I can recall hearing this.
Normally what we hear uh, you know, McCain loses New Hampshire, not even there.
No, Biggie, Romney has to win it.
He doesn't, it's bad news.
We go to New Hampshire.
Romney's got to win New Hampshire.
It's over.
He's gonna get out.
He doesn't win New Hampshire, stays in.
Um McCain wins, and it's over.
But this is the first time I've heard anybody in the drive-by's say McCain has to win or he's in trouble.
Because up till now they've all been saying it's McCain's.
It's all just a matter of, especially if McCain wins Florida.
I mean, it's over.
Uh that could well be, but I think McCain's gonna have to, if he wins Florida, he's gonna have to do it by more than a you know a couple points.
Otherwise, it's gonna go on.
This is gonna go on anyway.
Uh, because Romney's not gonna get out.
And this really it's boiled down, no, this really is between McCain and Romney now.
If you want to uh cut to the chase on this, this primary race is between McCain and Romney right now.
You'd have to say that based on the uh on the polling data.
So it's uh it's it's McCain versus Limbaugh in Florida, and I don't mean to keep beating your head over this over the head with this, but I'm irrelevant.
Uh earlier in the week, I should just shut up.
In fact, on a related post, Andrew Sullivan and his blog at theAtlantic.com, McCain and he's got a graph here.
Uh McCain versus Limbaugh, Obama versus Clinton.
Now, do you realize the significance of that?
It doesn't say McCain versus Romney.
You got Andrew Sullivan uh is is got Obama running against Clinton and McCain running against me, therefore, in this equation, I equal Clinton on the Republican side.
So uh Andrew Sullivan comparing me to a former president in terms of power in a primary.
This is absurd.
Uh anyway, Sullivan writes, the chart above Shows the remarkable polling similarities in McCain's recent primary successes.
After a slow decline at some point late last year, voters sense that he really was their best bet on character, policies, and viability.
And so the battle now is really one between the worst base instincts of both parties and their most promising candidates for the for the general election.
In fact, the stronger McCain gets, the clearer it is that he represents an opportunity to move past the bitter angry elements in today's GOP.
Elements that have made it very difficult to give a positive case for conservatism's merits as a governing philosophy.
Now, Andrew Sullivan.
I know you're moving back and forth across the ideological divide in recent years, and I I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for the intellect of Andrew Sullivan.
This just gets it backwards.
McCain represents an opportunity to move past the bitter, angry elements in today's GOP elements that have made it very difficult to give a positive case.
Folks, you listen to this program.
Am I mad?
Does this program exist and thrive on anger?
I would submit to you that no program of this size could sustain itself in our number one position for this many years if it was nothing but anger.
It's quite the opposite.
What's here on this program is laughs, a good time, optimism, the appropriate criticism of people who don't seem to get what we're about and what we're doing.
And yeah, sometimes they get passionate.
But it isn't anger.
Theger.
I mean, who who is it that is having to fight off the uh tendency to display a bad temper on the Republican side.
I believe it is Senator McCain.
In fact, I believe he even got a question about that last night, and he faked getting mad, and it did drew uh draw some some chuckles.
You see, this goes to what I was talking about in response to David Gregory's uh point about, well, the GOP reform is why do we have to reform ourselves for crying out loud we've won 20 of the last 28 years of presidential elections?
What the hell?
If anybody needs to reform itself, it's a Democrat Party.
The Democrat Party hadn't had a presidential candidate get over 50% of the vote since what?
JFK.
I mean, for crying out, that's that's 1960.
Uh we're this idea that we have to reform, we have to change ourselves?
That's the left would love that, and so would some Republicans who hate conservatives in their midst, particularly evangelicals.
Oh, they would love for us to have to reform so that they wouldn't be embarrassed to be in the party.
But if that reformation takes place, we are forever going to be a minor league team, like I said in the last hour.
We're going to be triple A. And none of our guys are ever going to be called up to the majors.
And we're going to be back to being led by guys like Bob Michael with 130 members in a 435-member House of Representatives, being shut out of meetings, and we're going to be told know your place, or you're not even going to get into meetings.
And if you don't know your place, you're not even going to be invited to play golf with our speaker.
And we're going to go, yes, sir, yes, sir.
Whatever you give us, we're very happy with.
Just make sure that we're individually re-elected every year, and we'll be glad to keep you in the What is this?
What is this attitude we have of defensiveness and inferiority that says we are the ones that have to reform?
In fact, I would suggest this.
The Republican Party is in need of a little reformation, but I wouldn't call it a reformation.
I'd call it a return.
We need to go back to our successful roots, and that's what they are trying to prevent.
With this need to reform, that means the subtle lingo there is we need to become more moderate.
Uh we need to have more liberal influence at the top of our party.
We need to get rid of the uh anger and the vitriol.
That's translated as getting rid of talk radio.
This is Andrew Sullivan.
He concludes with this.
Now I don't agree with McCain on everything, but if it's a choice between him and Limbaugh, there really is no contest.
McCain makes all the right people on the right angry.
McCain represents a chance to remake the GOP on reformist lines, just as Obama represents a chance for the Democrats to escape the sleas and cynicism of the Clintons.
Maybe the Republicans, unlike it appears the Democrats, have the courage to choose the future over the past to break a dynasty rather than entrench one.
Sure hope they do.
Now wait a second.
Who among our camp first place, I am not on the ballot, so Andrew Sullivan portraying this as a contest between McCain and me.
It's a contest between him and Romney, and I want to know how it is that nominating and and electing Romney would be in in investing in the past or a dynasty.
What what Republican his last name is not Bush?
And economically, he's far afield from Bush.
This is this is folks is highly instructive here.
If you listen to what these people who reside mostly on the left are telling us they want of us, they want us to be more like them.
Uh McCain makes all the right people on the right angry.
Now, does that sound like Andrew Sullivan is defining McCain as a conservative?
Because the people on the right that McCain has angered are conservatives, Andrew.
You used to be one.
That's what's needs to be translated about that.
So um anyway, that's that's that's that CNN.
Let's let's do this one too.
This this woman is hopeless.
This Carol Costello, babe.
She was um she's on the you wait till you hear this.
CNN situation or this is a montage of her report about me uh and McCain, and and she's trying to figure out here she is is talk radio irrelevant or not.
And she just can't figure it out.
Some believe those radio talk show hosts have lost influence in large part because of who is running in the Republican primary and who happens to be hot right now.
Conservative radio talkers bragged their influence helped put George W. Bush in office.
How times have changed.
Now leading many Republican polls, John McCain.
And those same talkers aren't bragging anymore.
Voters have betrayed them, despite what's playing on Rush Limbaugh show.
I think it is a sign that uh that no one uh or two talk show hosts really wield the influence that they did two or three cycles ago.
Because it's a different world in the land of Republican politics.
The party is fractured.
Conservative talkers do realize that, but they blame John McCain.
They accuse him of being covertly liberal for working with Democrats on immigration and campaign finance reform, and for voting twice against President Bush's tax cuts.
And I would like to hear some straight talk on those issues.
Will I?
Joe cannot.
Perhaps another side of these talkers diminishing power, John McCain himself.
He appears unfazed by them.
Asked about Limbaugh.
I know.
Oh, yeah, it's he's very influential person.
I'm confident I can secure the base of the party and win the nomination and win the election.
And maybe he can.
There he is on the cover of Time magazine as the new comeback kid.
The only image likely to drive limb crazier is if McCain and Mike Huckabee were the time cover boys.
I'm here to tell you if either of these two guys get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party.
It's going to change it forever.
Be the end of it.
Hugh Hewitt believes McCain is doing so well because he's a darling of the liberal media, including CNN, says Hewitt.
He believes we've put McCain on top, but thinks Mitt Romney will prevail in the end.
Just they just, folks, they're so desperate, so desperate to write the story of my demise.
And yet with each story they do, they illustrate just the opposite.
All right, a quick timeout.
We'll come back.
I mean, there's a lot more to say about that, but it speaks for itself.
Um we've already addressed this end of the Republican Party stuff.
You know what that means, you know, all that.
So we'll get to your phone calls right after this.
We'll get back.
All right, we're back.
Uh a couple things here before we get to the phones.
Uh here's the sound by the Senator McCain last night on the economic question I've been referring to.
Uh is Tim Russell.
He says, Senator McCain, you you've said repeatedly, quote, I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and uh foreign policy issues.
I still need to be educated on economics.
Is it a problem for your campaign of the economy?
Is now the most important issue, one that by your own acknowledgement you're not well versed on.
I don't know where you got that quote from.
I'm very well versed in economics.
I was there at the Reagan Revolution.
I was there when we enacted the first uh or just after we enacted the first tax cuts and the restraints on spending.
I was chairman of the Commerce Committee in the United States Senate, which addresses virtually every major economic issue that affects the United States of America.
Screw I'm very well versed on economics, and that's why I have the support of people like Jack Kemp, people like Phil Graham, people like Warren Rudman.
Yeah.
Uh Warren Rudman as an economic.
Well, that's cool.
All right, so uh the Romney camp got it out in time for the post-debate analysis.
And it was just five or six weeks ago that McCain said this, that he was inexperienced in economics and have to be educated about it.
I don't know where you got that quote from.
I'm very first.
At any rate.
I'm gonna give you some of you people don't know who Mob Michael is, and who ran the House.
Literally, before 1994, the Republicans were a 40-year minority, and at most they had 170 seats out of 435.
And this is from uh December 25th of 1995, Time magazine.
The old minority leader, the sweetly irrelevant Bob Michael of Illinois, would greet freshly elected Republican members with the revelation that quote, you bring them into the offices as part of the indoctrination, the greeting the hello, he'd say, every day I wake up, I look in the mirror, and I say to myself, today you're going to be a loser.
And he says to these new recruits, these newly elected freshmen, and after you're here a while, you'll start to feel the same way.
But don't let it bother you.
You'll get used to it.
Now imagine Tom Coughlin, the head coach of the New Jersey Giants, in his pregame speech before the Super Bowl of New England Patriots saying something like that.
Boys, men, we're losers, and you know you're gonna lose.
Just get used to it.
We're gonna get blown out today by these guys, and we all know it.
This is what the Democrats want us to return to.
This is what some Republican pundits want us to return to.
This is what what uh certainly what a bunch of liberals want us to return to as a party, the minor leagues with no chance to go up to the big leagues to the show uh and basically be irrelevant.
By the way, CNN um, after Obama has complained about it, CNN has banned James Carville and the forehead from appearing on CNN as analysts until the uh primary is settled.
They told Carville and uh and the forehead and Robert Zimmerman, who are CNN mainstays, but they're all Hillary supporters, they will not be doing any more political analysis on the network until the primary has reached a conclusion.
Uh this is because uh Obama repeatedly complained to high-level officials at the Clinton News Network about the presence of Carville in the forehead on the uh on the network.
Sam Feiss, the Clinton News Network's uh political director, confirmed the decision.
Yeah, well, we get we get closer to the voting.
We made a decision here to make sure that all the analysts that are uh non-aligned are gonna be on.
Uh he added the decision's been uh been made around the start of December.
Yes, Carville and the forehead are two of my best analysts around here, but we look forward to seeing them in the CNN plenty of times in the future.
Once the nominating process is ended, we'll get them back here just in time to destroy the Republicans.
Well, he didn't say that.
I just added it in there, but that's what they mean at the Clinton News Network.
Now, this this is in Talking Points Memo.com.
And by the way, uh not everybody at CNN appears to agree with the decision.
People inside CNN are surprised.
One person involved with CNN programming said, no other network buckle to this political pressure.
No other network has been told to get rid of its libs and Clinton supporters.
How come we have to get rid of our Clinton supporters?
People inside CNN.
By the way, Reuters C-SPAN Zogby poll.
Obama's lead is shrinking in South Carolina, though late, and that's still big.
It's 38 to 25.
But guess who's moving up?
The Brett girl.
The Brett girl is moving up.
He's moved up six points from January 20th from 15 to 21%.
The white vote in this poll, 10% Obama.
Those are like Republican numbers.
But anyway, the Bret Girls vote, the Bret girl, what if the Bret girl ends up beating Hillary in South Carolina comes in second place?
If that happens, it's going to be real tough to play the race card because how do you say, well, of course, of course, Edwards got second places, although black people.
How do you say that?
Oh, that would be interesting.
You know it.
And I know it.
Oh, yeah.
Lou Bega.
Mambo, numbuff.
All right, back to the phones.
I know you've been waiting patiently out there, folks, and I'm going to reward you now.
We uh return uh to Atlanta.
John High.
Welcome to the show.
Rush, a pleasure to speak to you today.
Thank you.
I want to take issue with uh a phrase used in that CNN uh story that you played a couple segments ago.
And it reminds me uh well, and it was it's a phrase that was also used by James Brooks uh a couple weeks ago, in which they in which they put forth that the Republican Party is fractured.
In no uncertain terms, I want to say that I profoundly disagree with that assertion.
You know, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Why?
Tell me why.
Because this is this is a party that you know, as we have said many, many times, the president's not on the ballot, the vice president's not on the ballot.
This is a wide open election.
So it is the idea that we are trying to figure out what is the message, what do we want to emphasize, what is that we think is important.
And the way I understand my American civics is that the way you do that is by going through a primary process.
Absolutely.
Congratulations!
A gold star for you.
Thank you, sir.
That's exactly what primaries are about to sort out all these ideas.
The Democrat Party's at war too, but the drive-by's won't tell you that.
It's a war over race.
We are having a war here.
It's a war over philosophy.
It's exactly the kind of war parties go through.
We are not fractured.
You know why they say we're fractured?
Because they're a bunch of morons.
No, well, that.
I mean, but specifically, I'll give you another chance.
Because it makes us look bad.
We don't know what we're doing.
Oh, it's because we're not aligned behind McCain.
McCain is their candidate.
McCain is their Republican.
McCain's a Democrat's favorite Republican.
And because we aren't getting behind him, we are fractured.
Would they say we were fractured if McCain was being defeated by fact, Romney is ahead of the delegate count in the popular vote so far, which is what this is all about.
This is not about winning individual states.
It's about ultimate delegate counts and totals when you get to the convention.
The idea of declaring a frontrunner, oh, McCain should be the frontrunner after South Carolina.
Huckabee's a frontrunner now.
You're exactly right.
Romney's been ahead in the delegate count since Newt uh Wyoming, I think, correct?
That's right.
So these clerk.
These clowns don't like either Romney or Rudy because they don't like conservatives.
And so, of course, McCain, you know, Huckabee, whichever one happens to be doing well at the time, is who they're gonna bally who and promote.
But they're just saying we're fractured because we can't get behind McCain, and their view is that McCain is a panacea for now.
McCain is, you know, the savior on a white horse.
But let me look maybe I'm making too much of this.
Ask you, John.
I mean, you're you're an intelligent guy, I can tell.
Thank you.
You're probably uh upscale because you live in Atlanta, it's not a cheap town.
I'd like to think so.
So when you see that papers like the New York Times and the Palm Beach Post, and you know, they're very liberal on their editorial pages, are endorsing McCain.
What does that say to you?
Anything?
Does it matter?
Uh it's one more reason why I don't read them.
Well, I know that.
I mean, I don't read them anyway.
And we don't know this because we read them.
We know this because other media reports are telling us that they endorsed McCain.
Uh but you but you have to know now that when you get down to November, the New York Times has a choice.
Let's say it is McCain.
Say McCain gets a nomination.
And of course, Hillary gets a nomination for the Democrats.
And the New York Times is going to write an editorial endorsing who?
Hillary.
Right.
So what is the value of their endorsement of any Republican?
I wouldn't say What is the value of anybody in the mainstream media's opinion of any Republican?
We had all these stories yesterday, day before, criticizing Bill for being too mean to Barack, and he's out there acting undignified and all this horrible stuff.
You got every I mean, it's all over the place.
Democrat state officials gets to November, who they got to vote for.
Well, it tells me when when the New York Times, the AJC, the Palm Beach Post, uh, when they endorse somebody like McCain, it it's it's it's the signal that this is this is not the quote unquote real conservative.
This is the guy that we find palatable, the guy that uh that will that will agree with us and quote unquote bipartisan.
Still want a cream that we still want to wipe out when it gets to November.
This is my point.
I don't care.
It's amusing and it's entertaining to report on all these drive-bys, and Democrat Party officials getting mad at Clinton for running around out there and being too mean to Barack and acting unpresidential and undignified, so it doesn't mean anything.
They're gonna vote in mass for Hillary Clinton in November.
So at the same time, it I don't care what they're telling us about Senator McCain or Senator Huckabee or Senator or Governor Romney, I don't care.
Because I know that nobody in a drive-by is gonna vote for anybody on our side, and I know that they're not going to endorse anybody but McCain on our side.
So I don't care.
In fact, it is instructive.
But why should we sit here?
Well, I don't, but why should anybody get all concerned what the drive-by's think of our side?
They're not voting for us.
I don't mean even if they chose one of our guys, which they already have, and they're just slavish in their adoration, and they promote and they love the guest.
So what?
We know they're not gonna vote for him.
So why you know you gotta get out of this mode here that our our acceptance or our arrival or the fact that we're making progress uh can be tracked by whether or not Democrats like some of us.
Screw that.
Because when it comes to the meat cracking time down there in November at election day, they're not gonna vote for any of us, or our guys.
So who cares what they say about them ever?
The more they praise them, the more suspicious you gotta get.
Because they do not want our side to win.
I don't care.
There is not one of them.
From Matthews to you, I don't care who it is in the drive, but not one of them that wants McCain to become president.
He's just if it happens and if an accident happens and some by hook or by crook, Hillary would lose, McCain would be acceptable, but they wouldn't be afraid of him.
But the last thing they want is for him to actually win, any of our people.
So who cares what they say, endorsement-wise or otherwise.
Uh Joe in Knoxville, Tennessee, your next open line Friday.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Hello, January 12th birthday dittoes.
Thank you, sir.
Um, listen, I called to ask about your wine interests.
Uh I like politics as much as the next guy, but last year before our birthday, a few days, you had a dinner party, and you listed all these fabulous first growth Bordeaux you had for the party.
Yeah.
And it got me to thinking about you and Marvin Shankin and Cigar Aficionado and Wine Spectator magazine.
And I'm wondering how long you've had that kind of interest, that level, and if it had anything to do with your relationship with him, or it predated that, and maybe some of your everyday type level wines, I assume you don't drink that kind of stuff all the time.
Uh okay.
Uh I back in the 1980s, uh, when I was in Sacramento, I didn't know anything about wine.
Um in fact, I I love to tell the story, in fact, earlier than that in in uh in Pittsburgh, had this five-star restaurant actually out in Irwin, it was Ben Gross.
And I went in there for dinner a lot.
Love the Somalier that had in his Fritz was his name, just the funniest, greatest old guy.
Had a hot date one night and thought I'd put on a show by acting like I knew a lot about wine, so Fritz comes over to go through this rig and roll question, Fritz, uh, it's give me a finest year for a great rent.
And he looks at me and says, the year you drink it for you.
You know, which I just had a little.
Because he knew.
I didn't know beans about it.
And I didn't have, short answer to your question, I didn't have my first vintage Bordeaux until 1985.
It was purchased.
I'll never forget who purchased the bottle.
We were at a restaurant.
It was purchased by a well-known Democrat supporter and developer in Sacramento, Angelos Decapolis.
And that was the first time, 86 the first time and I was so I'm 35 years the first time I have ever tasted anything like that.
I thought up until that time that all these people going on and on about first growth's this and trying to say yeah I taste the hazelnut hints of wood chips and so what is this?
Just drink it, you know but I I don't taste wood chips or any of that stuff but I do taste the soil.
I I I now I appreciate why people like this stuff.
So that was my first, but I couldn't afford any of it back then.
It wasn't until I got to New York in 1990.
Oh, first time I went to 21.
It was before I met Marvin Shankin, who did introduce me to the upper crust cigars.
Dick Turikian, now of the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation of Lazard Ferrer, got me smoking cigars in, I guess, his 1990.
But it wasn't until I met that.
In fact, it was Turikian.
Now, you'll understand this, Joe.
It was Tarikian who purchased the first bottle in 1961.
Chateau Aubrey on I'd ever tasted.
Yep.
And of course once I was finished then once that happened I said ooh I started learning about it on my own and I I started discovering and trying to get various things to taste and samples.
So all I I just buy what I like I I I don't got a pretty good wine cellar collection but I it's not it's not well it is pretty varied but but I don't have things in there that I don't know just because somebody says they're good.
The only thing I have is stuff I like and I I only serve it when I have guests.
I very rarely crack those bottles for me.
For one thing, I'm not going to drink a whole bottle of wine myself a night.
Not even close.
So the everyday wine that you would say, if I were just going to have some half bottles of Caymus, Screaming Eagle Cabernet.
I'm going to start naming names.
I'm going to leave some out.
Francis Ford Coppola's Rubicon, I like.
There's so much good stuff.
Jordan, I'm not big on white wine.
I like it, but it has to be with certain kinds of food.
But red wine, I can handle myself.
But I don't spend a whole lot of time with white.
I have whites, but mainly for guests.
It's the women that like the whites.
Well, there's some great ones in the world.
But I hope you don't drink Screaming Eagle for your everyday wines.
About $1,600 a bottle.
Not everyday, no, no, no.
But when I don't open the Bordeaux, Screaming Eagle, Caymus.
Screaming Eagle's hard to get.
it is well I appreciate it Rush thank you all right first wine question I've ever had on this program a quick timeout we'll be back we will continue right after what this open line Friday air we go back to the phones L. Rushbow here's serving humanity simply by showing up Victor in Wisconsin Wisconsin Rapids yes hi how are you yes sir this is regarding the ban on waterboarding the ban on waterboarding yes yes sir when
McKean was going through that waterboarding as torture and the reporter asked him, well, what if there were a nuclear bomb?
And he says that under no circumstances would we torture anybody because it would diminish us in the eyes of the world.
Well, if you don't waterboard the person, all you have left is please.
And if they don't say anything, the reason they planned it not going to get them to say anything and all they got to do is keep their mouth shut the bomb goes off and then scores of people would die.
Yeah now see but this is one of the things about Senator McCain that that troubles me and it's it it goes beyond the the obvious conclusion here that if if uh if you're not gonna do what you can in the nuclear ticking time bomb situation.
If you're not you're not gonna cast it all aside to save your own country.
You know, fine.
But my my the question I have is why does Senator McCain want to sound like the Liberals on this?
I mean, here's a guy who's he really he's he's promoting his national security, foreign policy, military expertise and experience, and yet offered the ticking time bomb scenario.
He says there's no way we shall ever torture anybody to get what we want because it would diminish us and the rest of the world.
Well, so would a nuclear bomb diminish us and kill a bunch of us, by the way.
I don't understand the desire to sound like liberals.
Um that's exactly what was going on at the time the question was asked.
The time is going that this this the liberals in Congress and the Senate, of course, were doing everything they could to neuter the Bush administrations to uh efforts to protect the country uh in any number of ways.
FISA courts, foreign intelligence surveillance, all of these things.
And then there's and we especially in the face of the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was actually broken with waterboarding, and it was from that that we learned exactly all the details about 9-11, who who planned it, mastermind it was him, and how it was executed.
It worked.
And it worked inside what, 90 seconds or 30 seconds?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, and it it stopped other attacks also.
We learned from him other attacks.
So in the face of it working, Senator McCain felt it more valuable to him or advantageous to sound like liberal Democrats at that time.
Now, there could be any number of reasons.
There could have been legislation pending in the Senate that he needed liberal support on.
The way these things, the way these guys in Senate trade back and forth, they're not leaders, they're not managers, they have not, they've not done not done administrative things.
They're horse traders in a number of, and of course, the idea of principle often takes a back seat to compromise to get things done this.
I that that's the thing about, and on so many on so many issues like this, Senator McCain has made it a point before he said it differently or changed his mind or flip-flop to sound like liberal Democrats on certain issues, issue after issue.
This is what I don't understand, and is what really frustrates me because, you know, and I'm not an elected official, and my job is not, you know, moving legislation forward and so forth.
But what I don't understand is why people like us in elective office do not view the liberals the way we do, and that is they are to be defeated.
Clearly, liberals in the House and Senate look at Republicans as to be defeated and destroyed.
I'm talking now in a political sense.
And we do not react that way.
And by the way, there's nothing wrong with reacting and viewing them that way, but war is war.
Political war is political war.
The idea is to win elections to defeat these guys.
So going out and trying to sound like them for whatever just boggles the mind.
And I think this is one of the things, one of the many factors that led to Republican loss, the House and Senate in 2006.
I mean, you can throw macaca in there in the Foley incident and the earmarks and all that.
But clearly, a lot of Republican voters thought that Republicans were not governing as conservatives the way they had promised uh when they campaigned.
That's that's the thing I don't get, this desire, this eagerness to not only sound like liberals, but to repeat verbatim their talking points.
Uh okay, you want to oppose waterboarding?
Fine.
Remember, President Bush did this.
And this was, I think, before he was elected as the campaign of 2000.
And he was selling this compassionate conservative business.
And the the notion of balancing the budget came up.
And he said, well, we're not gonna balance the budget on the backs of the poor.
Whoa, ho, ho, ho, man, wait a minute.
That's the kind of stuff that Tom Dashell's been thinking.
Tom Foley and all these uh tip O'Neill and uh and Fort Worthless Jim Wright, they've been saying, Oh my life, we're not gonna balance the why do we have to adopt their language?
Who we trying to vote for, get votes from here.
Uh and so this boils down to my big problem.
I I'm all for getting Democrats to vote for us, folks.
I'm all for weakening the Democrat Party, but not by being like them to get their votes.
I don't want Democrats and Liberals coming into our party as Democrats and liberals.
You talk about fracturing a party.
That's what will be the case if we do it.
If we win by bringing liberals and Democrats in as liberals and Democrats, well, kiss a goodbye.
Hey, a little bit more in his torture business uh in the next hour, folks, because it's not even really the ticking time bomb scenario that we need to be worried about.
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