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Aug. 8, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:20
August 8, 2008, Friday, Hour #3
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And the burning question in Detroit remains will the mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, get out of jail in enough time to campaign for Barack Obama.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
One exciting hour to go, ladies and gentlemen.
800 282-2882 is the number.
The email address is L Rushmore at EIBNet.com.
As I was talking to the guy from Dalton, Georgia about his phone calls to Saxby Chambless and Johnny Isaacson.
It struck me that it was two hours ago that I discussed what this is all about.
If you just tuned in, and you know what is he upset about?
Let me give you the highlights.
Again, this is from uh uh Kimberly Strassell in the Wall Street Journal today in a column entitled The Republican Energy Fumble.
Essentially, there is a gang of ten senators, five Republicans led by Lindsey Graham, John Theon, Saxby Chamblers, Bob Corker of Tennessee, and Johnny Isaacson.
They've joined five Democrats to craft an energy bill in the Senate that is exactly what Barack Obama wants.
It is a it is an utter disaster.
It's a Democrat giveaway.
New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures.
Only in four coastal states.
The regulatory hurdles are huge.
They have expanded.
They are higher.
PETA has a role.
The ACLU has a role.
The bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the United States coastline.
That puts off limits some of the most productive areas, including even if the states allow it, including in an war.
Well, you can only drill in four states anyway under this bill, but no, you can't drill any closer than 50 miles to coastline, even in these four states, which puts an war off limits and most of the really rich areas.
Is that also the bill contains $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies, and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables.
This bill would this bill would lead to no drilling at all anywhere, anytime.
It would lead to increased taxes on the oil companies.
As Kimberly Strassell writes, the Sierra Club could not have written this better.
So the Republican five has potentially given anti-drilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.
When this was a winning issue for any Republican.
McCain was finally had an issue he was winning.
He was embarrassing Obama with his old inflate your tires business.
The vast majority of the American people want to drill.
People in California, majority, want to drill.
Majority in Florida want a drill.
Now, this is just a compromise between these tenators.
You have to the gang of ten concept now.
You have to stand what this is.
The way things line up now, Harry Reid, the Democrats need 60 votes in order to get anything passed in the Senate.
They don't have anywhere near 60 senators.
They need nine Republicans to join them.
If every Democrat agrees on any legislation, they need nine Republicans to join them.
Well, five have here.
Because the bill was at a stalemate.
And the reason the bill's at a stalemate is because the Republicans, Mitch McConnell, don't want any part of it.
So these guys decided it doesn't look good for us to be in a stalemate.
The American people want something done.
American people want a they want efficient and comprehensive reform.
They want something done.
Yeah, they don't want something done.
They want drilling.
They want energy independence.
They want increased supply.
Now the House Republicans, they're still churning away over there, folks.
They're still trying to embarrass Pelosi.
They're still playing that great hand that the Republicans have been dealt here.
This is five senators from the Republican Party.
And what they have basically done now Is seen to it that all Harry Reed needs to do is go out and find four more Republicans to join in this.
And these Republicans, by the way, these five are conservatives.
Well, compared to Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, they are conservatives.
Compared to Gordon Smith and Oregon, they are conservatives.
Compared to Chuck Hagel, they're conservatives.
So you see, it's quite likely that there's four renegade Republicans that could join this.
If this happens, all it means is there won't be any legislation.
It doesn't mean this bill is going to pass.
It just means there won't be any action taken on drilling, which is exactly what Obama wants, which is what the Democrats want.
And it effectively cuts the rug from underneath the Republican campaign.
And as such, it's inexplicable.
Unless you follow the money, and who knows where that trail leads in this case, but almost always following the money will give you the answer to the most questions, particularly in uh in politics.
But then again, I mean, being honest and up front, you gotta say that these five Republicans are simply following the lead of the party nominee.
That was his success track.
That's how he got where he is.
So they're probably saying, hey, what's what's wrong with it?
Lindsey Graham, hey, he survived his primary fight after the immigration debacle.
He's figuring I'm he's bulletproof.
Nothing could have hurt him.
He can take whatever position he wants now.
And none of these five senators chase uh face a serious re-election challenge.
So that's that's that's we led this off uh two hours ago with the program.
And if you just tuned in late uh in yesterday or in the last hour, then you might not have known what was driving all of this.
Now the Institute for Energy Research has released an analysis of this.
It's called the New Era Energy Plan.
That's what the gang of ten uh bill is called the the New Era Energy Plan proposed by the self-titled Gang of Ten U.S. Senators.
Publicly available details on the plan are limited to press releases and brief summaries, which form the basis of the Institute for Energy Research's analysis.
The resident economist Robert Murphy issued the following statement.
Faced with the prospect of having the ban on offshore energy production expire at the end of September, if Congress does nothing.
This headline hungry gang decided it had to do something before leaving town for the August vacation.
The new era plan is the same as the era we find ourselves stuck in today.
Flushing subsidies, tax credits, and various other government handouts, but short on the energy supplies that our economy and our consumers need to prosper.
American families would be better served if the gang and the entire Congress simply stopped trying to help and just stepped aside and let the offshore ban expire.
See, that, my friends, is the real nub here.
Because the ban on offshore energy production expires at the end of September.
If they do nothing, it just goes away.
So what they've effectively tried to do here is reinstitute the ban.
Which is exactly what the Democrats want.
Five Republican senators giving the Democrats what they want.
Let's go to audio sounds five and six here, Mike.
Because the great inflate your tires so we don't have to drill for oil debate continues.
Yesterday in Lima, Ohio, at a town hall meeting, Senator McCain said this about the Messiah.
He actually thinks that raising taxes on oil is going to bring down the price at the pump.
He's claiming that putting air in your tires is the equivalent is the equivalent of new offshore drilling.
That's not an energy plan, my friends.
That's a public service announcement.
Let me tell you, he's McCain got this right, and Obama has the drive-bys have been providing cover when he first mentioned this tire gauge business.
When he's first started talking about inflating, maybe if proper inflation and the pressure in tires, he said we could save as much oil as we're going to get from the new drilling.
That's like saying we don't need to drill because we can save as much if people just inflate their tires.
But of course, who's driving around on flat tires anyway?
So he did say that.
This is such a winning issue.
Now, here is Obama aboard his campaign plane, OFOS one, yesterday afternoon, believing that the drive-by is uh that he won the debate.
In terms of the tire gauge issue, I think that was uh and is a illuminating issue.
Uh you've got uh a number one, John McCain, uh, pretending that that was some centerpiece of my policy as opposed to a response to a town hall meeting.
Then it turns out that John McCain himself said, actually, inflating your tires is a smart thing to do, as did President Bush, as did the Triple A, uh, as did NASCAR.
Uh, and so I thought it was a good example of uh the fact that the other side's not serious about uh real energy savings that can push down the price of gas.
They're interested in scoring political points.
Unbelievable.
The other side's not serious, and this is the guy proposing the tire gauge trick.
Let me tell you something.
He did say, ladies and gentlemen, this is more than just an answer at one of his town hall meetings.
It was a center when you've got a plan that you say can save as much energy as we would get from drilling new energy.
That's a centerpiece, folks.
And that's what the press allowed Obama to get away with for never mentioning again.
So this thing rages on Obama stuttering around, pausing and oeing and awing and and you know, all the way through this, clearly on the losing issue.
And it's he gets even better than that, because the Democrat Party's in such a state of disarray right now.
There is no unity whatsoever.
The Clintons are about to turn that convention into a war zone.
Obama's going on vacation without having named a running mate.
The Democrats are all a tizzy about that.
It's uh it's here.
We got two sound bites.
Ann Lewis uh from the Clinton team who is on DNC TV Live with the anchor Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
And Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, said Ann Lewis.
I talked to so many people yesterday, there's a gender divide.
All the men who were Clinton supporters said, what are they doing?
Why why why are they pushing this button?
She's going to be embarrassed.
She'll be humiliated if it becomes a roll call, because in the end it's going to be Obama, and she won't have as many people as she thinks she'll have.
All the women said we want to be heard, we want to have a resolution, we want to have catharsis, we're going to have closure.
What is it about the distinction now in the Clinton camp between the men and the women?
This is all about having a roll call vote at the Kent Convention that the Clintons want to turn into a war zone.
Here is Anne Lewis's first answer.
We could probably spend an hour talking about what you've just identified, because that's really very interesting.
but again and aside from the small fact that those women we're talking about will be the majority of people who cast their votes in november i don't want to make anybody unhappy at any stage in this campaign but for sure i want to know that those people who are watching this so closely and many of them as you heard taking out In many ways, I feel as if this is about my voice being heard.
This is about my being recognized.
I tell you, these gals cannot take losing.
They're just, you know, men lose all the time.
These gals just can't take they want their voices heard.
They want to blow this place up.
You mark my words.
The reason they want to do this is they want to blow it up because they don't think that Obama can win.
There's another story out there, uh big story coming Monday in the Atlantic Monthly.
Some reporter there can't got a hold of 200 or so internal memos written by Clinton staff people during the campaign.
And the Clinton staff people are nervous as hell about it because it's not flattering.
Three, I have obtained three uh electrified phrases here from these internal memos.
One Clinton staffer said Obama's just unelectable.
Another Clinton staffer said Obama has a lack of American roots.
Another Clinton staffer wrote an internal memo.
Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun.
And there's more.
Now we know what that is.
A lot of these are written by Mark Penn, we're told, fired by the Clinton campaign because the staff didn't like the guy.
This is this is deep.
Here's one more bite from Anne Lewis, because we got to go to the break here.
Uh Andrew Mitchell then says, Well, it's the anniversary of events in uh in Seneca Falls.
Uh Will there be a women's organizational march that will become a Hillary March at the convention?
I am seeing a number of releases about events are taking place that we're not planning.
But the night that Hillary Clinton, right now, tentatively, and nothing is final, but the night that she might speak, Tuesday, August 26th, is of course the anniversary of the day when the suffrage amendment, the amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed women would have the right to vote, finally is added to the Constitution.
I can't think of a better way to celebrate.
That was a historic achievement.
Her campaign was a historic achievement.
So there are steps along the way as people watch it, whether they are there or watching at home, and they say, yes, we're being heard, we're being recognized.
We're part of this.
Okay, three things.
The night Obama speaks is the forty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King's speech, the I Have a Dream speech.
Now we're told the night Hillary speaks is the anniversary of women getting the vote, which is what started the welfare state that would now strangles us, by the way.
If women had never gotten the vote, we would not have a budget deficit.
But that's another story.
The third thing is, the third thing is, ladies and gentlemen.
The reason Obama does not want a roll call count.
Is because the world will see exactly how close that race was.
They will see how narrowly he won.
That's why I don't want the roll call vote.
By the way, Mrs. Clinton's out there saying, You think your candidacy, Barack, is so historic?
Well, so is mine.
And that's what really bugs the women.
Okay, so a black candidate that's more historical than the first woman candidate.
They are they just there's a war brewing here, folks.
And it actually been going on for a long time.
It's just now effervesing up there to the surface.
Hey, Snerdley, are you an organic food guy?
You are.
Yeah, I figured it f uh figured as much.
Well, for the UK telegraph, organic food does not have more vitamins.
And it costs up to one third more.
Organic food, no richer in vitamins than food grown with pesticides and artificial chemicals, according to a new study.
Shoppers can pay up to a third more for organic produce, but the researchers said that with no more nutrients, it was a lifestyle choice.
The team found no clear evidence.
University of Copenhagen, by by the way, here uh the team found no clear evidence of any difference in the vitamin and mineral content between the organically and the chemically grown crops.
Senator Chambliss, isn't it?
We have Senator Chambliss on the line.
Senator Chambliss, I'm glad you call.
I only have a couple minutes here, so I might have to ask you to hold on during the break here at the bottom of the hour.
Okay, Russ, how are you, my friend?
I'm I'm fine.
There's a hubbub here because of a Wall Street Journal column today about you being a member of the gang of ten, you and four of your Republican colleagues that basically signed on with a Democrat's idea of an energy plan that will essentially shut off all drilling, uh, all kinds of uh tax credits for renewables and alternatives.
It will let uh uh gr all kinds of brand new regulations basically thwart the effort to drill for more oil.
Well, Russ said, nothing could be further from the truth.
I mean, you know, here we are in Washington, uh trying to set good policy on energy as well as other issues, and people back home in my state and all across America are hurting.
They're angry because gas prices have gone from $2.33 when the Democrats took over to over $4 and I just backed off a little bit, but people are upset about that.
And what are we doing in Washington to try to help these people out of all of a sudden they've had their kitchen table budget shut to do uh heck and back?
We're doing nothing.
So what we did was we got together in a bipartisan way, Rush, and you well know that that no major issue gets resolved in Washington unless you got sixty votes, and we had to get sixty votes.
So we put a bipartisan group together, a group of Democrats who uh were willing to make the commitment to additional offshore drilling, provided that we would make some compromises otherwise.
And well, it is Senator, I don't mean to be rude, but I do have to take a commercial break here in ten seconds.
Can we can you hold on?
We go through what some of the specifics of this bill are, and you can tell me if the reporting that we've all heard about the specifics are uh are accurate.
Yeah, be glad to be right back.
Stay with us.
Senator Saxby Chamblis from Georgia.
And we are back with Georgia Senator Saxby Chambless.
Thank you for holding on during the break, Senator.
Sure.
Now, let me let me set a couple things up here.
It won't take long at all, and it'll give you the uh uh general idea why people are bamboozled today and a little angry.
In the first place, yeah the people are fed up with the four dollar gas price, it's a tipping point, and they want to drill for new oil, become independent.
They want to drill here and drill now, and they want they don't like being dependent, they want to have more supply from domestic sources.
The ban on offshore energy production is set to expire at the end of September if Congress does nothing, giving the American people exactly what they want.
Now here comes your bill, the new era bill, and it says that new production will only be permitted in four states, and the state legislatures are in charge of it, not the federal government anymore, and only fifty miles or further offshore in those four states, which eliminates the richest fields and uh things like and war.
It has eighty-four billion dollars in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables.
It basically, according to the Wall Street Journal today, will eliminate any effort for new drilling.
Well, I you know, it's it's actually designed to do just the opposite.
Rush, first of all, uh our bill has nothing to do with whether or not the moratorium remains on after September 30.
That's going to be an up or down vote on either continuing resolution or some sort of omnibus bill.
That's where it'll be included.
Uh I intend to vote to lift the moratorium.
I think all five of us will do that.
I'm sure all five of us will.
This doesn't have anything to do with that.
What it does have to do with is we've got a commitment for the first time that uh I can remember in my now fourteen years in Senate a significant number, although five may not sound significant, but it really is.
We got five Democrats who are willing to say, look, you know, we think we need to be reasonable and we need to join with you guys to let's work on a compromise bill that will allow additional offshore drilling, something we haven't done in in the last uh twenty-eight years.
And sure, we had to make some compromises on the other side, but what we what we've got is this.
We've got common ground.
Is Anwar common ground?
Absolutely not.
Uh I voted down at Rush uh as you well know.
I got elected to the House in ninety-four.
I know, I know, but this bill this bill puts and war out off limits.
No, no, no.
No, it it doesn't it doesn't address an war one way or the other, but we knew, Rush, that we had never been able to get sixty votes, and we will not get sixty votes on an war in any piece of legislation right now until we get enough like-minded folks in there.
But this bill says that while we know we can't do that, we can drill offshore.
We're gonna open up additional areas.
Uh well, four states will have but uh look, the Gulf of Mexico is where the oil is, and that's where we're going to start with in this bill.
We're gonna protect the beaches of Florida.
That's why the fifty mile barriers there.
Uh okay, so the fifty-mile barrier.
See, the thing the thing that has people upset about this is that everybody's assumed that the Democrats are going to sweep to major victories in the House and Senate and a landslide in the White House.
This this drilling issue came along with a tipping point of four dollar a gallon gas.
Finally, Senator McCain had an issue the Republicans could embarrass Obama with and perhaps ride to victory because the vast majority of the American people want to do the opposite of what the Democrats do.
So nobody can figure out why compromise with the Democrats and cut the knees off of Senator McCain.
Well, it doesn't cut Senator McCain's knees off.
It it really compliments his position.
But what it does do is it provides an opportunity to send a message to the markets that wow, the President's serious bat lifting this moratorium, and now we've got ten members of Congress who have come together in a bipartisan way who say, also, we're gonna lift the moratorium, we're gonna allow more drilling.
Look what's happened to the market since we started this conversation.
Uh just in the last week since our um legislation was announced, our draft discussion was announced.
Uh we've seen a further reduction rush in the price of a barrel of oil.
Now I can't but we're not taking credit for that, but the fact is the markets understand that finally Congress is not at loggerheads.
Congress is serious about expanding offshore drilling.
They do want to drill now, and they want to drill in places where we know there's oil.
plus Senator, Senator, the Democrats don't want to drill, and the the obstacles to drilling that are apparently in this bill are going to make it impossible to succeed.
I mean, letting uh the the U ACLU and groups uh uh animal rights groups and so forth have a regulatory role or at least a right to protest here, which is just going to make the permit process extended over and over and over.
I don't see the Democrats compromising anything here.
Well, uh they they've agreed that we we move into uh additional areas of the Gulf of Mexico, they've agreed that we go to places like Virginia, where the two senators there uh want to immediately take advantage of this, and uh we don't know where there's oil out there or not off off the Atlantic coast.
We think there is gas out there and we will have the opportunity to have immediate access.
But let me mention one of the key points to what we agreed to, Rush.
One argument we've heard is that if you start drilling now, it's gonna be ten years before you see any results of it.
Well, in the Gulf of Mexico, where we number one know there's oil, no there's gas, there's something else out there that is key to immediate effect on the market, and that's the infrastructure.
They've got the pipelines already existing in the Gulf of Mexico, and if a driller were successful out there in the short term, uh we could immediately some see some impact in the supply, and as you and I well know, supply and demand is what is causing the price of what they've done.
Absolutely, and and I know the ten years thing is a bogus thing.
That's just the the Democrats are trying to shut down.
I mean, they've turned oil into a campaign issue demon.
It is it is amazing.
So you you say you've got five Democrats, by the way, we're talking with Georgia Senator Saxby Chamblis.
You say you had five Democrats that that were willing to compromise with you moving in our direction is the first time in uh in fourteen years.
Why not why not make them come a little further?
Well, if we could have, I assure you we would have.
We had some very heated discussions between our our members, uh, even though everybody was respectful and professional with each other, but but we did try to move them.
Uh I would love to have N war in there.
I uh I would love to have oil shale in there, although the technology with the oil shell is not quite where we could take advantage of it right now.
And I think this, Rush, I mean, when people see and understand that we can uh with the technology we have today drill in areas even where we've drilled before, and from an environmentally sensitive standpoint, uh not interfere with the environment.
I think it gives us the opportunity to to open up an war.
Otherwise, uh I'm afraid symbolically it's going to be extremely difficult ever to do that.
Well, to me, that that that whole environmentally friendly stuff's a straw dog because it's been environmentally friendly for decades.
We haven't had spills from rigs.
We haven't had leaks from rigs.
The rigs and the the oil facilities and pumping and drilling and so forth.
We've had, you know, tanker spills and so forth, but the actual infrastructure to get the oil is clean as it can be.
We're not destroying anything with this.
It's the and the politics of this is what has some people upset.
You know, they they see Republicans always compromising with Democrats to move things forward, and they want Democrats defeated, not compromised with.
Well, what my constituents tell me is that they don't like paying four dollars a gallon for a gallon of gas and upwards of that.
And if Congress could just quit their partisan bickering and come together on on this as well as some other issues, they would see relief.
And and I think they're right.
Um we're not gonna see any relief as long as we just stand on the floor and and butt heads with each other.
Um, well, if butting if butting heads with them leads to them losing elections and you getting enough senators on your side of the aisle to have no worries about having to compromise.
I mean, that that that's the that's the gold standard.
But just I know time is running short here, and I need one I just want to get one thing clear.
Sure.
The Wall Street Journal today says that this deal is essentially what Harry Reed wants, that it guarantees no drilling because even though there's four states that can drill, states have to decide it.
You've given you turned the decision over to the states.
Uh the fifty mile limit and the new regulations, the an the analysts of this bill on our side say this is gonna result in no meaningful discoveries.
Well, uh if that's true, then they're telling you something entirely different from what our analysts are telling us.
We we did our homework on this, we did our research, and the folks that we talked to say there is additional oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's there now.
We know where it is.
Uh there have even been wells that have been shut down down there.
If they're within fifty miles, we wouldn't be reopening, but if they're outside of that, potentially they could be.
So we know there's oil and gas there.
Uh the question is, Russ, whether you want to have access to it or whether you want the issue out there from a political standpoint.
And I know and understand that.
I I understand that we're winning on this issue, but at the end of the day, we have the opportunity not only to win on the issue, because it's pretty clear.
Democrats as a whole don't want to drill, Republicans do.
Um but people know that the price at the gas pump is not going to come down until we do have the opportunity to drill.
As long as we stay where we are today and keep the issue, we don't have the opportunity to drill.
But if we do have a compromise on offshore drilling, we can drill within a short period of time.
Senator, thanks for calling.
I uh uh people I'm sure wanted to hear what you uh you had to say about this, because we opened the program with it and and uh understand your office is being bombarded with calls as are some of the other Republicans.
So thanks for calling in and uh telling us your side of this.
Okay, Rice, thanks, buddy.
You bet.
Take a quick time out here, folks.
We'll be back and continue on open line Friday right after this.
I got everybody asking me to say, well, how how do how do you how do you how do you respond to that call?
Yeah.
Look, I I think folks something is pretty obvious.
And I say this with all due respect.
I'm glad Senator Chan was called.
But we are you and I, who have adopted the principles of the nation's founding as the things that guide us, the preservation and expansion of individual liberty and all that fall from that, we consider ourselves to be in a war with the forces of the left who want to usurp as much of that liberty and reshape this nation as far from the founding as they can.
So obviously we're in a war and we don't see compromise.
We don't see, you know, freedom versus less freedom.
Where do you compromise there?
Why are we who seek freedom to give some of it away just in order to show the American people we can get along?
Uh and to come up with some efficient uh uh bill that nobody will admit that is a great bill, but we've got this notion we gotta get something done.
So you and I look at this that we're we're in a war here.
Your kids and grandkids of the future, you want the country to be preserved and and even improved.
And it just it just appears sometimes that people in our own party are surrendering.
They don't look at it that way.
They don't think they're surrendering, they think that they are making progress.
They look at it as being criticized if they don't get anything done in a legislative body.
We look at legislative bodies not doing anything as victory.
Because what do legislative bodies do?
They write laws limiting freedom.
They empower bureaucracies made up of people who are not even elected.
So we have a simple issue here that has been highlighted by the workings of the market.
We have emerging democracies and capitalist markets all over the world putting an increasing demand on the supply of oil.
When there is not enough oil to keep up that supply, the price rises.
And we have learned that the tipping point in this country for gasoline, given all other market conditions is four bucks a gallon.
Once it hits four bucks a gallon, and once jet fuel fuel hits its equivalent, do you realize the airlines are gonna they're gonna close something like sixty to ninety million seats on flights from now to the end of the year?
That's because there's less demand to fly.
I mean, Jet Blue the other day said they're gonna start What?
Selling bottled water and pillows or renting the pillows when you're they've got to come up with something.
They can't raise the fares to be competitive with other airlines.
So then we learn that we're importing an increasing amount of our oil every year.
And we have it thrown in there that some of these people from whom we're buying the oil hate us and their dictators and their terrorists and so forth and so that's neither here nor there, because the market will take care of that kind of stuff.
But just the fact that we have to import it when we don't have to.
We have our own.
Most people say, okay, we already drilled, they drill for oil all over the world.
And the world has not died.
And the world has not been destroyed.
We drill for oil everywhere.
Okay, so why don't we go drill our own to lessen the dependence on these other places, increase the world supply, bring the price down, create some jobs in the process.
We have a Democrat Party that says, no, inflate your tires and get tune-ups, but we're not gonna drill.
We're gonna get you driving these little smart cars with windmill propellers on the back.
While the Chicoms are stepping up to SUVs and bigger cars, Americans are living retrograde, retrograde lives because of the price of gasoline.
So we've got a perfect issue.
Democrats anti-progress.
Democrats for high prices.
Democrats want you angry.
Democrats want you suffering.
Democrats like gasoline at four bucks.
The American left likes you angry at what food costs.
Because they think they can convince you it's Bush's fault.
Therefore the Republicans' fault.
And all of a sudden, the Democrat presidential candidate fumbles the issue big time.
Surveys in individual states and nationwide show a majority of the American people want to drill.
Drill here, drill now.
Millions have signed a petition.
We got Republicans in the House of Representatives who are trying to embarrass the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi into coming back and having a debate, and then out of nowhere.
Five Republican senators sign a compromise bill with Democrats that limits new drilling to four states and no closer than 50 miles to the coast with new added regulations and think it's a victory because they've come to a compromise.
I guess if you're a legislature, legislator, and member Congress, the House, or the Senate, if you're a legislator, I guess you figure the definition of progress is getting something done.
When most of us view progress as just leave us alone.
We've got this moratorium on drilling.
Let it go.
Let the ban just expire.
It all has to happen.
And we got free reign.
So while we look at this as a very important battle in a war.
Some people on our side don't see it that way.
They see it simply as a thorny little legislative issue that if we can just come to some compromise deal, then we can say we've made progress.
Be right back.
Stay with us.
ABC News says that John Edwards, the Breck girl, has admitted to the extramarital affair.
I will not be here Monday.
I am traveling to the Western states for a very important speech.
I will be back Tuesday.
Jason Lewis will be here Monday.
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