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June 19, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
29:41
June 19, 2008, Thursday, Hour #3
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Hour number three, it has been a ride.
We've had a good time today.
Lots to do and lots more to do.
I'm Mark Davis from WBAP Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas with you today.
Jason Lewis with you from Minneapolis tomorrow.
Do join him for that and join Rush on Monday because that's when he'll be back between now and then.
Have a wonderful weekend.
But one hour left on this Thursday, and we are glad to start that off by visiting the White House.
Councillor Ed Gillespie with us.
You'll remember him as RNC chairman.
He's been behind a number of interesting political campaigns from our shared friend Dick Armey to John Kasich to George Allen, just a guy with a lot of stuff in his head.
And he serves the president well in that regard every day.
Ed Gillespie, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing great, Mark.
Thanks for having me on.
It is my great honor.
Not a lot of guest opportunities when Rush is here.
So hey, open season, man.
Open season.
I love it.
Hey, it has to be an interesting couple of days to be you, because yesterday there's the president out there in the sunsplashed yard of the White House, actually saying things that you don't have to shovel sand against the tide to get the American people to appreciate.
I think that everybody, not everybody, but a really nice majority is with you on drill here, drill now, pay less.
There's no doubt about it.
And with gasoline over $4 a gallon, Americans are open to taking a look at new ways to bring down the cost of gasoline, including production here domestically, which has been blocked every step of the way by the Democratic-led Congress.
And the President came out yesterday and added to other voices out there saying now is the time to reappraise your past positions on these and the efforts that you've made to block any effort to explore domestically off of our coast.
And by the way, pretty well off of our coast, not where you would be seeing rigs out there, but on the outer continental shelf or in the shale oil region in Utah and Colorado and, of course, Anwar.
And to expand refineries so that we can have refining capacity for the oil that we produce.
And the American people are supportive of that, and we're hopeful that Democrats and Congress will reconsider their past opposition.
Good luck with that.
Let's talk about that because I don't know, maybe after a little bit of time it may happen.
But it appeared just yesterday, not long after the president made his remarks with Secretary Kemthorne and Secretary Bodner right there alongside Energy and the Interior, that the instant Democrat index cards came whipping right out.
We can't drill our way out of this.
This won't do anything to oil prices right now, as if anything would.
So it seems like they were getting their backs up and circling the wagons.
Only a wave of calls from their constituents will change that.
You think that might happen?
Well, I think that there's a difference between those liberal leadership at the top of the House and Senate Democrat caucuses and some of the rank-and-file members.
And the key here, Mark, is if there's an opportunity to get a vote on the floor of the House or the Senate, be interesting to see how rank-and-file members vote because I think not all Democrats are going to tow the Pelosi Party line on this and keep their constituents continuing to pay that premium that they're paying now for the policies.
And there is some truth, by the way, I should say.
It wouldn't have an immediate effect, just like it took us seven years of them blocking every effort to expand exploration for it to reach over $4 a gallon, getting the process going and getting permits issued and getting drills put in place and wells pumped will take a while.
But I think it would have a pretty big impact almost immediately in terms of people's understanding of where the market would be going.
And that could have an immediate impact on prices.
There were four points the president laid out.
And the first was to start drilling along that outer continental shelf.
Second was to let's take a look at some oil shale.
Third was let's go make a couple of caribou, scoot a few feet to the left up there in Anwar.
And the fourth was for crying out loud, can we do something to get some refineries online?
It's been 30 years since we have built a refinery in this country.
And so even when those who say, well, we ought to have more, you know, the Saudis ought to pump more or we ought to be getting more production, that's crude oil they pump.
And the fact is, it's not like there's a lot of extra capacity in our refineries.
And 30 years, you know how much the demand for energy and for gasoline has gone up in 30 years, and yet we haven't built a new refinery in this country because of the antiquated laws and the fact that we've made it so easy for environmental extremists and others to block any permitting process.
So the President did, that was his fourth part, is not only do we need to produce and extract more oil from the ground, once we get it out, we've got to refine it so it can get pumped into cars.
White House Councilor Ed Gillespie with us for a few more minutes.
Let's talk about a couple of other things.
By your own words in an AP story, the window is kind of short.
I mean, everything that there's no such thing as a long-term Bush plan by definition because he's only going to be around for a few more months.
But that doesn't mean that everybody's drumming their fingers on the table.
And before a presidential speech on the economy, I think almost a couple of weeks ago, you said that there may be some short-term things in the pipeline, speaking of which, to help stimulate an economy that a lot of people at various levels still say is kind of struggling.
There are some things we can do.
The most important thing, I think, at this juncture is to make permanent the tax cuts that were put in place because the prospect of this looming tax increase is a huge drag on the economy.
Now, we're not going to get that done in this window, in all candor, Mark.
But I just wanted to make that point.
There are some things, though, that would be helpful.
Of course, the energy bringing down the cost of energy would be hugely helpful.
We are supportive of housing reforms that we think would help provide stability in the housing market.
And we think that that would be a positive thing when it comes to our mortgages and making sure there's greater stability in the financial aspect of people taking out loans to purchase homes, new homes.
We also think on the national security front, we've reached agreement with Democrats and Republicans in Congress over funding our troops in combat in the Iraq War supplemental, and in the process, providing some funds for our returning veterans as well for education and other benefits.
And we think that's a good bill and reached it's a bill that the President can sign after having to have threatened vetoes repeatedly on things that would have binded our commanders in the field from doing what they need to do to win.
The House and Senate have reached an agreement on a surveillance bill for terrorists overseas, suspected terrorists overseas, foreign terrorists overseas, that would keep this program going and allow us to continue to interrupt and intercept their planning and plotting, while at the same time providing protection for those companies that participate in the program so they'll keep participating and give us access to information that we need and protect them from any past efforts they made to help the government.
So we're starting to see some movement on some priorities of this president.
And I have to tell you, in all candor, here it is the middle of June.
And this president, who was when I started almost a year ago, it will be a year ago next week at the White House, people were saying, oh, he's a lame duck.
He's had a pretty strong run and continues to be in the mix.
But I suspect when Congress goes home for the August recess, the conventions start in September, at that point our windows closed.
Will the President be attending the McCain convention in St. Paul?
You know, we've not made any announcement on his plans.
The norm for the sitting president is to show up on the first day and say goodbye and then get out of the way for the nominee.
And I can tell you, if you saw any coverage of the president's remarks last night at the president's dinner here in Washington to raise money for the House and Senate campaign committees, he is full-throated in his support for Senator McCain as the next president and most importantly at this time in our history, the next commander-in-chief.
The reverse, not so true.
And, you know, there's no way this can't be a little awkward, but it's also pretty obvious to everybody.
Ed, if it's just you, me, Rush, and some folks who continue to thank God every day that President Bush is into saving exactly.
Listen, if it's not.
You can't slip that by.
There you go.
And I know that McCain has a great admiration for much of what President Bush has done.
But Senator McCain is also seeking to be president of a country that is sometimes at best ambivalent about some of President Bush's record.
I talked to Bill Salmon last hour, who's writing a book that you and I are both going to love.
The main premise is that history will be far kinder to the Bush years than current pundits are.
But I guess the question I'm really coming down to is last thing I'll ask on this is, does everybody kind of understand why McCain feels like he has to distance?
Oh, absolutely.
And look, the fact is that as President Bush said last night, I've worked with John and I've run against John, and it is a lot better to have John McCain on your side.
And so he is someone who has very strong principles on things that he believes in.
He has bucked his party in the White House.
And I can tell you from first-hand experience working here, there are times when he is able to withstand a lot of pressure to change his position.
That is serving him very well as our nominee right now.
And people do appreciate that.
And the fact is, as he has pointed out, that kind of courage and that willingness to reach out across the aisle and work in a bipartisan manner to get things done, he has specific examples of that and specific examples of having the strength of character to say, no, I'm going to, I know it's not popular, and I know that I have a lot of my friends on my own side of the aisle who aren't with me on this, but this is my stand.
You can't find an instance of that in Senator Obama's record.
You really can't.
There's not one time that I can think of when he said, you know what, I'm going to buck my party.
And I guess that's why he in the National Journal is the most liberal member of the United States Senate.
Counselor to the president, Ed Gillespie, with us.
Always a pleasure, Ed.
Hey, if somebody wanders into a Borders or a Barnes ⁇ Noble, can they still find copies of Winning Wright?
I think they can.
And I love it if they would buy all the ones that are left off the shelf.
It was Ed's book from Fall of 06 on it.
Fall of 06.
And very good rave reviews, but not great sales.
Well, hey, look, it's a good figure, a Renaissance man with a number of jobs.
And thank you for dispatching this one so well and giving us some of your time on it.
I appreciate it a lot.
Best of the boss.
Great to be back with you, Mark.
Thank you.
Ed Gillespie on The Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis, guest hosting The Rush Limbaugh Show for today.
Jason Lewis in from Minneapolis tomorrow.
And many of you on the phones with us next on the EIB network.
Not a bad little 33-year-old record.
Aerosmith's walk this way.
Toys in the attic, right?
1975.
We are all so very, very old.
How old was John McCain when this came out?
Oh, you'll drive yourself crazy.
Don't do it.
Hi, Mark Davis in for Rush Limbaugh.
And we much appreciate Ed Gillespie's time sometimes.
Bless his heart.
It's not tension, but just the moment of hesitancy.
And I didn't intend the question as not a trap or anything like that.
I love Ed, and we may agree or disagree on, I think both he and the boss are too soft on immigration, but blah, blah, blah.
I just asked because I was curious.
Has President Bush been invited to the convention?
And it was like this second or two of fairly uncomfortable silence.
Oh my God, I'm sorry.
Oh, but think about that.
What are the issues behind that decision?
You know, I mean, you know, you, all right, okay.
First thing is, I'm going to be there.
I'm going to both of them.
And then the Democrats come first.
And thank God the Democrats come first.
And oh, by the way, as I think I made clear last time I had the opportunity to sit in this chair, usually you'd have one party and then a week off and then the other party.
But those communist Chinese Olympics are going to so crowd the month of August that in order to get everything done before the middle of September, you come out of those Olympics and then it's Democrats, bam, Republicans, bam, in rapid succession, which is great because ordinarily what you would have is just the gushing, the enormous afterglow of the post-Obama coverage.
But instead of that, as soon as everybody's packing up in Denver, we're all headed to St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican convention.
So nothing the matter with that.
But by the time we all get there, will we see a presidential motorcade wind its way through the capital city of Minnesota on its way to, what is it, the Xcel Energy Center there where the Minnesota Wild play in the NHL?
Well, it's going to be wild up there no matter what happens.
And I don't know, by then, I guess maybe the burning remains of Denver will still be on our on our TV screens.
I have a general thought that everything's going to be calmer than we think it is.
Do you already, for example, sense that all this Hillary versus I told listeners this, and we all enjoy being right about stuff every once in a while.
I said, you know what?
The healing will begin immediately.
And it did.
Just like after McCain won everything, and we were all, you know, everybody was Romney supporter, Huckabee supporter, you know, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul.
Well, no, the Paul people will never give it up.
I was on a roll there, but you know what I mean?
Everybody's pretty well on the way to being fine.
And in the Democratic Party, the healing is not only already underway, it's already pretty well done.
Is there even, you know what?
Let's put a test.
I know you're listening to the Limbaugh show no matter what.
I know so many of you are.
Actual Hillary backers.
Are there any of you?
Are there any of you?
We have 36 minutes before we got to break camp here.
Are there any of you still harboring the grudge?
Are there any of you still saying, well, if my woman couldn't win, no way I can vote for Obama?
I'm guessing there are a few, but just not so very, very many of you.
You are Democrats before you are anything.
You're much better at this than we are.
There are a lot of Republicans who are still saying, McCain, hell no.
But in Democrat land, come on.
You're already, you feel it in your feet.
Feel the rhythm.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
You're already starting to walk in lockstep.
You know it.
Admit it.
Admit it.
Tell the guest host, it's okay.
I am jovial, but serious about that.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
Let us go to Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Daniel, Mark Davis, thanks for hanging on.
Nice to have you.
Hi, how are you doing?
Very well.
Thank you.
I think we should take the prisoners from Gitmo and ship them back to Afghanistan for trial.
And I realize why.
Yeah, I think this would take some eating a crow of George Bush, but I think he could do it for the country.
Why does he need to eat crow?
And why in the world would you take these commissions from the very secure environment of Guantanamo and put them into a security nightmare like Iraq or Afghanistan?
Well, ship them 10 at a time for security purposes and because they'll be hanged in Afghanistan.
Oh, I said, okay.
I'm sorry, sir.
We're not necessarily talking about trying to achieve some type of Western-style justice.
We're talking about throwing them to the wolves, some Saddam-style justice with people just hooting and hollering, cell phones out, recording all the hangings.
Woo-hoo!
That's a party.
They're not getting their cases dismissed in the United States or in Washington or in Virginia.
You know?
My first favorite choice is sane rational justice at Guantanamo.
If, however, the prospect, as you raised it, is having these guys released by the occasional idiot federal judge, yeah, I'll take some Baghdad, Hilla, Balad, Kabul, or the suburb-style justice.
Daniel, I appreciate it.
Let us, let's see, we got a little time here in Burlington, North Carolina.
Debbie, hi, Mark Davis.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
How are you?
Hi, Mark.
How are you?
Very good.
Thank you.
Well, it's my day off today.
So on my day off, I spend my time watching my congressman and my senators at work.
And gifts.
Short day.
Sorry.
Sorry, go ahead.
Sometimes, sometimes, sadly, a long day, but go ahead.
Well, today on the House of Representatives, I just want to give kudos, kudos to our Congress for addressing one of our serious needs that we have here in the United States.
Are they addressing our energy crisis, the drill here, drill now?
We need to take care of business and get her done.
No.
I'm sorry, are they addressing our economic issues because the higher energy prices is causing everything to go up?
No.
What are they discussing today?
How about paid parental leave for federal workers?
Yeah, federal families.
With our Congress at work, don't think I have not called Pelosi's office and congratulated her on knowing where our priorities are.
I hope that she is.
We need to get on the phone and call and tell everybody, get busy.
We need to get her done.
I hope she appreciates your sarcasm as much as I did, even though I trampled it to death.
I apologize.
She was building to a point there, Mark.
She was building to a point.
You totally busted her flow.
Oh, yeah.
Look, I know that there are things Congress has to do, and not everything can be about winning the war, curing cancer, and getting rid of the $4 gas every single blessed second of every day.
But when there is something the president has asked you to do, like getting rid of the restrictions on American oil, how about at least thinking about doing it?
Mark Davis, be right back.
It is the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis.
Sunspots don't like me or something.
I don't know.
Does that ever happen?
Now, does this happen when Rush is at the house?
Does this happen?
I mean, I'm getting ready to cruise into the thing.
Oh, that's all right.
No complex around here.
Everything re-plugged in, everything cool.
And as they say, no, what was it?
This was from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
No matter what happens, your toes still tapping.
1-800-282-2882-1-800-282-2882 to the phones in Sacramento.
Brian Mark Davis on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Pleasure to have you.
Hello.
Okay.
How are you doing, Mark?
I just want to start off by saying I love my country.
And I really think Michelle Obama meant what she said the first time when she said that she was not, it was the first time that she was ever proud of her country.
And being black, I know a lot of people actually do feel that way when you just said these things on BET television.
You watch these rappers all day, and it's not cool to love politics, be involved with the cops in any sort of way, and you just sat there and you made to believe all you think about is buying and purchasing things, materialism.
They just want you to buy things, dance, and rap.
And I just think it's a shame.
Can I ask you something?
Because being 21, As you told Kit, Michelle Obama talked about not having been proud of America during her adult life.
She was born 1964.
So her adult life went to a generous question.
But I got a fast question for you.
You got a quick question.
She became an adult, became 21, became your age, 1985.
She's been an adult for 23 years.
If we use 21 as the measuring stick, you've been, you know, how long you've been 21?
A couple of months?
Yeah.
All right.
So what is it that has enabled you in the life that you have led?
Because you were pretty well born the year Michelle Obama became an adult.
Is it a difference in life experience?
Is it a difference that we're so far past Dr. King?
You've never seen a colored water fountain.
Your entire life has been led in an America that generally has been taught how to get it.
But you know what?
If I was raised in Michelle Obama's days, those are even worse.
She experienced what?
Segregation and all of that.
So I probably would have been radical back in those days, you know?
You think?
Yeah.
Being segregated, you know, black water phone, white water phone.
Yeah, what's that?
That would have outraged me.
And understand myself.
I'm not proud of that.
No.
No.
And that's why I always made a point to make that distinction.
That if she had actually, you know, if it were 1965 and the Civil Rights Act were just passed in the past year and someone had, you know, had a grandfather who was a slave and had faced water cannons in Selma or something like that, man, I'd be the first to say that maybe being proud of the country is a struggle, but not for somebody born in 1964 and certainly not for somebody born just 21 years ago.
I appreciate you, sir.
Thank you very, very much for getting in touch.
We are next up in Buffalo and Doug, hi, Mark Davis.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Welcome.
Hi, Mark.
How you doing?
I'm one of the 2% of the population that works in agriculture, farming, basically.
And what I wanted to make what I wanted to say was people need to realize that every meal they eat, there's probably at least a half a dozen diesel engines that were involved in it from moving it from the field to their plate.
And that there is no alternate energy to run those engines on.
People need to understand that there isn't any other source but oil.
And we need oil at a reasonable price to keep those engines running because food supply is not something that you can just let run out.
You can't let it stop.
We can't dally around on this, that for the foreseeable future, not just agriculture and not just diesel engines, but the rest of us just driving in our normal lives are going to need an enormous amount of fossil fuels, and we better set about the business of getting it.
If, along the process of the next few years, we manage to find some technology that works as well, hooray for us.
But in the meantime, turning our backs on our current oil needs is insane.
Like you say, we'll starve.
Well, I think we need to be not so naive as to just think that it's a real possibility, and we need to really understand that now is the time to stand up.
The population has to stand up and say, we're not going to go into that place where food gets short so that we can keep the air clean.
We have to come to the point and say, maybe it's time to regulate these clean air standards and make these engines a little bit more efficient and work in some of these directions because food supply is not like housing.
You can't set it aside for three years and go back and use that house.
There's a really narrow window in there.
And if it begins to slow down or stop, we're in a world of trouble.
What exactly do you do, Doug?
We raise potatoes.
Gotcha.
How's that working out for you?
Well, we're getting squeezed with the cost.
The costs are astronomical, and we're passing them on as long as we can.
But we're vertically integrated enough to where we can go to the company that sells them to the public and ask them, you know, how much, what price increase can the public stand before they can't buy this product?
And it comes down to this year we'll get through.
Next year it comes to the place of if he tells us this is the limit, they can't pay anymore for this, and we say, well, these are our costs.
What are we going to do?
I mean, we can't provide you with this product at any cheaper cost.
This is the bottom line cost.
Yeah, there's economics classes will tell you about elastic demand and inelastic demand.
You reach a certain point where the price gets high, people start to look very, very seriously at living without whatever you're providing.
Doug, thank you.
Best of luck to you and best wishes.
Mark Davis in for us.
We'll be right back on the EIB network.
Whatever you may have planned for today, just make sure everybody wang chung tonight.
Okay, that's all we ask here at the EIB Network.
Hi, Mark Davis in for Rush, and Jason Lewis in for you tomorrow, filling in for Rush from up in Minneapolis.
And I have, it's kind of funny.
You know, you live a life and you go a hundred different places.
Been to Minnesota, never been to the Jason Lewis neighborhood there in Minneapolis, St. Paul, but I will be in a couple of months.
Can't wait to get up there.
Maybe I'll run into him.
That would be nice.
He's a good guy and talk a little politics at the Republican Convention.
Also looking forward to being in Denver for the Democrats.
And they're both going to be a scene, man.
For very different reasons, there's going to be a scene.
It'll be interesting no matter what.
Speaking of interesting, let's dive into more of your calls.
Like, for example, in Des Moines.
Bonnie, Mark Davis.
I'm in for Rush.
It's nice to have you.
How are you?
I'm fine.
How are you?
Great.
Thank you.
Well, I just wanted to call and let you know that I am a Democrat and I am for Obama.
And I live in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa, which is predominantly white people, but we do have minorities.
And I went to my caucus in January, which, first of all, was the largest caucus I have ever attended.
And I will say that the people there that were voting for Obama who were for Obama were 3-1 over Hillary.
Very few people were for John Edwards and zero people for some of the other candidates.
Yeah, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, just nothing.
And I was up there for that, Bonnie, and that's a wonderful town you have and a great state in Iowa.
But it was clear early in the evening how this was going to go.
Why do you think that happened?
Well, I think it's because we're just sick and tired of the way that things go.
And I think most people are not in favor of the war in Iraq.
And I also think a lot of people are terribly upset with our government and not just George Bush, but most politicians over the catastrophe that happened with Hurricane Katrina.
All right.
Then I'm in since almost every Democrat running is going to give you something different than President Bush and every Democrat running is going to pull our troops out of Iraq.
It's just a matter of fact.
I hope so.
Then what is it about Obama that enabled him to beat the living daylights out of the most famous woman in the world, Hillary Clinton, and guys with resumes as long as both our arms, like Bill Richardson and Joe Biden?
How did that happen?
What made you an Obama follower and not good, long-standing, reliable Democrats like Joe Biden and Bill Richardson?
I had a lot of respect for Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, but the reason I am supporting Obama was because he wants change.
And like I said, I want all of the politicians from what?
Change, from what?
I mean, what kind of change will Barack Obama give you that Joe Biden would not?
Well, begin with, he's much younger, so we're looking at new ideas.
I want the new people to be coming in and becoming politicians to start thinking about my grandchildren and what they're doing.
Okay, so what idea, what idea will come out of Barack Obama's head because he's younger than Joe Biden that would not come out of Joe Biden's head because he's older than Barack Obama?
Well, I don't know if there would be any idea that's going to come out different.
Well, then what difference does it make?
Then why not go with the guy who's actually been around the block a couple of times?
Because it represents old Washington.
I want new Washington.
Oh, good Lord.
Okay.
Well, and I'll just, I'll try again.
What is it about New Washington that you will like better?
To begin with, I want to get rid of the hatred.
I do not like the negative politicians.
I do not like the negativity in the campaign.
Those are the kind of things that I want to see.
I want to see people be Americans where they love everybody, not just some of the people, and they don't judge people on their race or what religion they are and what church they go to and how much money we have and how much money we don't have.
I love the wealthy as well as the poor people to be well off.
And I don't mean materialistically.
I mean just feeling good about themselves and being at peace with living in the United States of America.
And Barack Obama can do this, but Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton could not.
No, I think they could, but just not in my book.
I think Obama could do it the best.
Listen, a part of any vote is what concrete things will you like about somebody?
And another very valid and real part of any vote is, how does the guy make me feel?
Do I just like him?
Am I excited about him in the White House?
And that is as much a part of anybody's vote on either side.
Bonnie, I appreciate it.
My best to all folks are having a tough time up in Iowa.
So my best wishes to your whole state, and thank you for being with us.
Appreciate it a lot.
Okay.
Gosh, what to make of that?
A word or two for me, maybe you.
When we return, I'm Mark Davis in for Rush on the EIB Network.
All right.
I want to thank Bonnie and Des Moines and everybody who called.
And I really enjoyed our chat because if the first thing you noticed is that there was no real way to define the actual change that Obama could bring and she just really couldn't do it, but she just really didn't care.
She was just excited about him being president, something every candidate ultimately needs.
Mark Davis in for Rush, thanks a lot.
Jason Lewis, tomorrow, thanks to Kit Carson and Mike Mamone and to you for listening here on the EIB Network.
God bless our troops and God bless our country.
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