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May 1, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:43
May 1, 2009, Friday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host of this program, now documented to be almost always right, 99% of the time, it's wonderful, a thrill, and a delight to have you with us on Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Okay, and I promise we'll get your phone calls early in this hour since it is Open Line Friday.
Remember, very few rules in play as I, one of the major members of the major media, take a huge career risk in allowing callers to basically run the program.
Talk about whatever they want.
No guidance from me or Snerdley.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address, LRushbow at EIBNet.com.
In the previous hour, we were discussing the hapless and comical.
I'm still amazed that late night comics can't find anything to laugh about or make jokes about of this administration.
This whole Supreme Court nomination thing is one giant joke.
As they've got to find all the checkboxes here, some candidate that fills out every requirement Obama has.
And the last requirement on the list is they know anything about the law.
They got to be woman, female, they got to be pregnant.
They got to be single mother.
They got to be poor.
They've got to have the disadvantaged.
They got to be Hispanic.
They've got to be Muslim.
Got to be Asian, got to be whatever.
We played a soundbite in the last hour for Tavis Smiley being interviewed by Joe Scarborough, who's a friend of mine.
I like Scarborough.
But he asked a question that I just, he said to Smiley, don't you think that African Americans would like to have somebody on the court that it really is somebody that reflects the majority view in the black community?
Why don't we ever ask the question, should maybe we get rid of Ruth Buzzy Ginsburg?
Don't you think Christians need a woman on the court to reflect their view?
Why don't we ever get that question?
Or you could, you know, you know, Scalia.
You know, a lot of Italians don't like Scalia, but we maybe need to get somebody like Tony Soprano on there who's more like some Italian.
I mean, the way these people look at things is just incredible.
They would never ask the question about Ruth Buzzy Ginsburg, but they ask it about Clarence Thomas.
So I'm sure George Stephanopoulos has told Obama who he supports in one of those conference calls that he participates in every morning with Rom Emmanuel, The Skull, Paul McGella, and James Carville, Serpent Head.
I'm sure they've made their picks known.
We don't know what they are, but we'll find out at some point.
Now, it's interesting here, ladies and gentlemen, that the same process that Obama is using to fill nominees on the basic level of court systems, circuit courts and Supreme Court, it's not about judges and other laws, about judges who feel.
And if you look at the Chrysler bankruptcy that was literally crammed down everybody's throat yesterday by President Obama, you find that perhaps the same philosophy.
Let's not do what's best for Chrysler.
Let's do what's best for those who are disadvantaged at Chrysler.
And who's that?
Unions.
Now i'll tell you, there are people even the NEW YORK Times today the lenders Obama decided to blame.
I mean this.
This has caused a lot of people.
I have a rancorous objection and reaction to what Obama did yesterday.
For example, Peter Weinberg and Joseph Pirella are part of a band of Wall Street renegades, a small group of speculators Obama called them yesterday who helped bankrupt Chrysler.
That anyway, is the Washington LINE.
But now these two men, along with a handful of other financiers, are being blamed for precipitating the bankruptcy of Chrysler.
As Chrysler's fate hung in the balance on wednesday night, this group refused to bend to the Obama administration and accept steep losses on their investments, while more junior investors, including the United AUTO Workers Union, were offered favorable terms.
This, I told you, explained all this yesterday.
This is how it's done in Argentina, the bondholders get the shaft, the banks get the shaft and the union owns the company.
In a rare flash of anger, it says here, the president scolded the group thursday as Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection.
I don't stand with those who held out when everyone else was making sacrifices, he said chastened and under intense pressure from the White House, the investment firm run by mr Weinberg and mr Pirella Pirella Weinberg Partners abruptly reversed course.
In a terse statement issued shortly before six o'clock last night, Pirella Weinberg Partners announced it would accept the government's terms.
Now listen to this next passage in the NEW YORK Times, whatever the outcome, this bit of brinksmanship on the part of these two guys the the hedge fund, as they were called who wanted to hold out.
They were being, they were being told to cash out at 20 cents on the dollar.
Now these people hold investments of average people.
It's not these two guys single-handedly putting their own money into Chrysler and extending debt to Chrysler.
It is people who invested with them.
So it's not just these two guys that are going to lose, it's everybody who invested with them, and yet they are portrayed as the villains.
Whatever the outcome, this bit of brinksmanship, which may be characterized as a game of chicken with Washington, has become yet another public relations disaster for Wall Street.
How about a pr disaster for Chrysler?
A public relations disaster for Wall Street?
The only reason it's a pr disaster for Wall Street is because that's what president Obama wanted the perception to be by singling them out, tarring and feather them publicly yesterday was unnecessary.
He did not have to do it.
President Obama had his little hissy fit.
Now let me see if I can explain this.
Get into finance and it gets convoluted.
But it was Clear that Obama favored the UAW at the expense of the bondholders.
That was, there's no question because they got 55% of the company, folks.
He insisted that the bondholders settle for pennies on the dollar.
The bondholders is the private sector here.
Many of the bondholders, not all, but many of them were the big banks.
And these hedge funds, these Perella-Weinberg partners here that you've heard besmirched, the big banks went along with what Obama demanded, but the small majority of hedge funds did not.
The bondholders committee, representatives from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Oppenheimer Funds, Perella-Weinberg Partners, Xeron Funds, so forth and so on.
The big banks went along, the hedge funds held out.
I mean, and Obama accused them of holding out for a bailout.
They were not holding out for a bailout.
They were holding out for a proper return because they were carrying Chrysler debt.
So here's the money question: Did the big banks decide out of the goodness of their hearts to go along with Obama and settle for pennies on the dollar?
Or did they do it?
There's three possible reasons.
They did it out of the goodness of their hearts.
They did it because TARP money was sent to them under the table to cover their losses.
We'll never know if that's the case, but it's a good bet.
Maybe they didn't suffer losses.
Maybe the big banks didn't really.
Remember, these guys all voted for Obama.
Public consumption is everybody took a bath.
And that's what makes the deal fair.
Everybody sacrificed, except the UAW, Obama's real friends.
The third possibility to explain why the big banks rolled over is they're just scared to death because the Obama administration, Treasury Department, has their future in its hands.
So of the three possibilities, goodness of their hearts, they got secret slush money under the table from TARP, or they're scared to death because the Treasury Department holds a future right in their hands.
I vote option three.
I vote that the big banks rolled over because they're scared to death because wherever I go, I don't care who I interact with, they're scared to death of this administration.
There is genuine fear of the government from average Americans buying up guns and ammunition like they never had before to people on Wall Street, to big businesses.
There is abject fear.
So I vote for number three, but we'll never really know.
What we do know is that Obama got angry at the holdouts.
What we have here is a new fairness doctrine, the Obama fairness doctrine.
He didn't need Congress, didn't need the courts for this.
It's not about radio, it's about everything.
Here's the scenario: Obama listens to all sides, and all sides end up thinking Obama understands and agrees with them.
Obama, after listening to all sides, then plays Solomon and pronounces what's fair.
And if you don't accept his fairness, you are dispatched to Messiah Park.
Not Fort Marcy Park.
You are dispatched to Messiah Park.
Sure, of course the listing is just an exercise.
He got his mind made up.
He brings these people in the room just to do a snow job on them, to make them think they've got a chance at changing his mind.
Why he had dinner with the conservative columnists?
It's all for sure.
It's all PR.
This guy's a committed, ideological, liberal leftist who's putting on a show for everybody.
There was never any time.
I told you in December the UAW was going to get this company.
Return the nation's wealth to its rightful owners.
And this is exactly what's happened.
And then, but they're ramification.
There are always consequences to leftism, liberalism when they do things.
Here's a story out of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
It is a gold mine of information.
Actually, pretty good reporting.
It's by Angela Tablak or Tablak.
I'm not sure he pronounces it.
Angela, I don't want to ruin your career by praising you.
I know that's a possibility here, but it's actually a good job of reporting.
A quote from the story, the thing Obama does not control yet is if the consumer buys their vehicles.
Meaning, after all of this is done, the one thing that hasn't been taken into account in any of this, is there anybody who knows how to build a car now at Chrysler that people are going to want to buy?
And what we know is that the people Obama's put in charge here have never had that job.
They've never had that responsibility from his Car Czar team to the union.
But this story is about all of the unemployment that's going to happen in the St. Louis area as a result of the bankruptcy.
Obama's yesterday talking about all the jobs he saved.
This story is about the plant closings in the St. Louis area and the jobs that are going to be lost.
Chrysler plans to permanently close Fenton, Missouri's pickup assembly plant.
There are two of them there.
About a thousand people work there.
And the minivan plant, that was idled last year by the end of 2010 as part of a broader plan to unload excess manufacturing facilities.
For the second time in its 84-year history, Chrysler has hovered near bankruptcy.
To help Chrysler, the federal government agreed to give it up to $8 billion in additional aid and to back its warranties.
That's something else.
The bondholders, here's the government passing out $8 billion and the bondholders, the hold a legitimate debt, get none of it.
They get the shaft because they're Wall Street and Obama loves the New York Times writing about this as another PR disaster for Wall Street.
Why, that's the nation's wealth.
The federal government in this deal also promised the UAW that it will protect workers' retiree health care benefits during the bankruptcy.
The union gives up and sacrifices nothing other than some of these jobs that are being lost in the St. Louis.
They're never, of course, they're not going to resolve the legacy costs.
They're not intended.
Nobody's intending to resolve the legacy costs.
You mean in perpetuity payment to people who have retired of health care benefits and pen.
At some point, it'll be offloaded and Obama will take it over at the federal government.
But basically, what you have here, the investment bankers stood up against the deal, a deal that shafts them royally.
Obama went out and smeared them publicly and they cave.
And that's reported as a PR disaster for Wall Street.
Now, since all of those who made out in the deal agree these guys are going to lose in court, should they go?
Even those involved in negotiations see little upside in fighting.
There's a zero chance this group will be able to get anything more in bankruptcy court, given that 90% of the lenders are lined up against them, the hedge fund people.
Washington Post, Obama vows swift overhaul as Chrysler enters bankruptcy.
Negotiations dominated by banks who are at the mercy of government.
That's option three as to why the big banks rolled over.
So who owns the company?
At the end of the day, who owns the, here, says it right here.
The new majority owner will be Chrysler's Union Retiree Health Fund, which would receive a 55% stake in the new company.
Fiat is going to get 20%, with its share potentially rising to 35% over time.
Obama gets 8%, Obama being the U.S. government.
The Canadian government will get 2% because they're providing some financing.
But Chrysler's UAW Union Retiree Health Fund is the proud new owner of Chrysler when this is all over at 55%.
Negotiations have been dominated by four large banks that own 70% of Chrysler's debt, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley.
Each has received government bailout loans through the TARP program.
And they said they'd cave on this.
They'll be glad to cave because their future is in the hands of Tim Geithner, the Treasury Department, and Barack Obama.
We'll be back.
Your phone calls next on the EIB network.
Stay with us.
By the way, a little aside here, Vanity Fair magazine, an editor there, has suggested that President Obama select Anita Hill to replace Justice Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court simply to make Clarence Thomas's worst nightmare come true.
Aren't the lives just a bunch of nice people?
It's so nice.
Love to hang around these people.
Let's go to South Windsor, Connecticut.
This is George.
You're up first on Open Line Friday.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rosha Blugoevich for Supreme Court Dittos.
How's that?
Thank you, sir.
Hey, you know what?
This example of Obama and what he's doing with the Chrysler creditors is a perfect example of the cram down that the senators just voted down.
I mean, instead of having the courts say to the banks, you have to adjust the rates, now you have Obama basically saying, well, I'm the judge and jury now.
You creditors have to reduce the rates on Chrysler.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Wait a minute.
You're jumping a gun on something here.
Let me tell people the story that you're talking about.
The Senate yesterday handed a victory to the banking industry, defeating a Democrat proposal that would have given homeowners in financial trouble greater flexibility to negotiate the terms of their mortgages.
Essentially, the Senate yesterday refused to let judges fix mortgages in bankruptcy, which means that a contract is still a contract somewhere.
Here's a quote from Senator Durbin of Illinois.
Well, it's not a quote, but in recent weeks, major banks, bank trade associations, worked closely with Senate Republicans to stop the measure.
12 Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting against it.
It was a cram-down-your-throat policy that the Senate defeated.
So your point about this again is what?
Is that this is exactly what Obama was trying to do to the creditors like Oppenheimer of Chrysler.
He was basically trying to force them through fear to reduce the debt on Chrysler, which would have, like you said, brought their shares down to 20 bucks.
What do you mean trying?
He did it.
Well, exactly.
And to your point about option number three, it's out of pure fear.
Absolutely.
Everybody's running in total fear of the guy.
You know, even, folks, a lot of these banks want to give the TARP money back, remember, and he won't take it back.
Obama won't take the TARP money back.
He wants in.
These guys voted for him.
In a way, it's sweet justice, except that the American private sector gets shafted again.
Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.
John, hello.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hello, Rush.
Let me just say it's an honor to talk to you.
I listen to you as much as I can.
And my brother Pete turned me on to you during the Clinton years, and I've been listening ever since.
Thank you, sir.
And the reason I'm calling Rush is I was listening to your clips from President Obama that we need someone on the Supreme Court with real-world experience, and the light bulb kind of went off.
My suggestion would be Judge Judith Scheindlin, also known as Judge Judy.
She's female.
She's loaded with real-world experience.
And I don't know if you ever watched her, Rush, but she's really wonderful.
And she's all about personal accountability.
And also, I would say that, you know, she's like you, Rush, in that she's a real truth detector.
Well, she's disqualified.
Real truth detector.
Doesn't she think too much?
No, because she's a truth detector.
Obama's idea of a judge is if you find the truth, ignore it.
Look for social justice.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have Rush Limbaugh meeting and surpassing all audience expectations.
By the way, folks, I don't know if you've heard this or not, but I have somehow made Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
I am number 38 in the top 100 most influential people in the world.
They have me in the entertainers and artists category.
They also have a heroes category, which is where Michelle Obama is found.
I think that should be where I am, but nevertheless, I'm on a list.
And Glenn Beck, they asked people to write profiles of the people Time chooses.
And they asked Glenn Beck to write the 300-word profile of me.
And it's fabulous.
Glenn Beck thought to say something about me I wouldn't even think to say about me.
It was really, really good.
I want to publicly thank Glenn Beck.
Oh, yeah.
Bars.
Sorry, ditto cameras.
Had the bars on for a little too long there.
Glenn Beck wrote this great piece, 300 Words, and you can see it on their website.
We'll link to it.
We may have linked to it already at rushlimbaugh.com of Coco's upspeed.
They have a big gala, big party in New York at Lincoln Center.
Yeah, Coco says they linked it up there.
So it's at rushlimbaugh.com if you want to read what Glenn Beck wrote.
Well, I can't make it.
I can't make the gala.
I can't.
It's New York.
I'm not going to New York.
I am not going there for any reason.
I'm not going to be seen in New York.
I'm sure that New York State tax auditors are going to be prowling around outside.
I can't be there that night.
It's Tuesday night.
I've got to be in Washington Monday night for the president's address at the Heritage Foundation.
And they have oversold the place.
They've got people in satellite rooms with television sets on Monday night.
I think I go on stage at 8.15.
I don't know if it's televised or not, folks.
I haven't.
HR says he doesn't think it is.
No, Biggie.
We're going to videotape it.
Is that right?
Okay, they're going to capture it.
Right.
They're going to capture it.
They're going to capture it on video, and we will encode it and see if it looks good enough to post on our website.
No, I'm sure that Heritage will put it on their website as well.
But yeah, I just, I can't get there for the big gala on Tuesday night.
And, you know, President Obama's going to be there.
Well, I don't know if he's going to be there.
He's invited.
Obviously, he's on the list.
I'm sure he's number one in Time's most influential people in the world.
As I say, I'm number 38.
I really, I do.
Seriously, I want to thank Glenn Beck again for a very nice profile.
Now, back to the phones.
This is Grant in Comfort, Texas.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Howdy, Dittos.
Howdy.
Here I am, just a guy out here in the Texas Hill Country trying to figure out how to best contribute to the unremaking of my country.
And it dawns on me to possibly run for office.
What kind of office?
Oh, well, to be determined, but I'm thinking the House looks like we could use some help there.
And I've been thinking about this for some weeks now.
We've got a lot of bloggers on our side.
We've got a lot of thinkers on our side.
We've got a lot of support from conservative radio.
But in the end, you mean you've already floated the idea to people and you're getting positive feedback on your idea to run for office?
No, actually, this would be my maiden voyage.
No, no, but you see, you've got support from bloggers.
What do you mean?
You've told them.
No, I say we as a conservatives have.
Oh, yeah.
You've got an army out there, a network of people that would support your candidacy if you theoretically decided to go for it.
Well, I'm not entirely sure of that.
What I know is the point is we've got a lot of people on the periphery, what I'd call cheerleaders.
And some of us have got to get on the battlefield.
And, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about setting aside my private practice and taking a crack at it.
What is your private practice?
What do you practice privately?
I'm a lone wolf consulting engineer, and I run projects for a living, among other things.
Hmm.
Interesting.
52-year-old guy, and I've got a wife and a dog and a business.
But anyway, I'm listening to your monologue yesterday, and you're hitting on a bunch of points that mirror my own, all very encouraging to me.
So I thought I'd call to get your take on my biggest dilemma about this.
Well, the first biggest dilemma is what do I do to make a living if I'm not making a living?
But aside from that, if I'm to do this, and if any citizen candidate is to do this, how is running as a Republican not a waste of time?
And if it is a waste of time, and if a third-party candidacy is even worse for conservatives, how does one proceed?
Well, now I need to ask you some questions here before I answer you.
First thing, how do you make a living when you're not working?
You mean when you're doing your campaign?
Exactly.
Well, a lot of other candidates have figured out how to steal.
I think you should investigate that.
Well, I'm afraid I have a character issue there.
I'm just kidding.
Well, it is a factor.
Your fundraising, you know, you can't use that for personal expenses until you get elected when nobody's looking.
But I'm sorry.
I'm just in one of these giddy moods here today.
You have money in the bank on which you could live while you temporarily suspend your consultancy business?
Well, sure.
You know, I'm a successful, hard-working American, much to my discredit.
Well, it does make you a target of this administration.
I sympathize with you on that.
All right, let's get to the nub of this.
The district that you live in in the Hill Country of Texas, is that district predominantly Republican or predominantly Democrat?
Well, that is another dilemma.
I'm covered over with conservatives here, including The guy that currently holds the office in the 21st district, who I'm going to assume has got a dog and a parakeet and goes to church regularly, and I've looked at his voting record, and it looks pretty good.
Okay, so there's nothing wrong with this guy then.
Well, the problem is, you know, he's on his 12th trip back to Washington.
And my way of thinking, at this point, he has no way to self-assess his own thought corruption with respect to his actions in Washington.
And I'm still evaluating this.
I mean, this is serious.
I'm seriously evaluating this.
And the question is: has a guy that's been there 12 times, is he going to have the blood pressure necessary to push over the hump that's coming our way in the next few years?
Well, only you can answer that because you're in his district.
You're monitoring how he votes and how he behaves.
I have to think that if you're thinking of challenging him in a primary race to run for his seat, you have to think that there's something wrong with the way he's doing the job.
Otherwise, you wouldn't engage it.
Well, again, it boils down to a sense of how much vigor is there.
You know, I don't see outrage in the Republican Party anywhere in Washington right now.
I know that.
I spoke about that at length yesterday.
The golden opportunity that exists, especially now to contrast our views with theirs with this joke of a search for a Supreme Court nominee.
I mean, this is even more ammo for our side.
Look, I applaud you wanting to do it.
I have so many people email me and call me saying, you keep it up.
You keep it up.
What are we going to do about this?
And I keep saying, what are we going to do?
What are you doing about it?
Well, you actually want to grab something in your hands here.
Go do something about it.
So if you do this, and you're going to do this as a conservative, it's going to matter what party that you're a member of.
But if you're going to do this, do not hire a consultant or a campaign advisor or anybody who is going to talk you out of your conservatism as a means of appealing to a broader segment of the electorate.
This is something famous going on in the Republican Party right now.
You've got to reach out.
You've got to get some moderates.
That's not why you're running.
You're running to stop Obama.
You want to help the effort to stop Obama.
You've got to be who you are after you elected, too.
You campaign as a conservative.
I guarantee you you'll have much more success turning out a fired-up base that wants to vote for you if you remain true to what's in your heart and mind.
And then if you do happen to get elected, when you get up there, keep it up.
Don't waver and don't change.
The pressure will be tremendous on you to moderate your views and so forth.
But look, I really admire you wanting to actually get in the game and quote unquote make a difference because you're so fed up.
But I've never run for office.
I've never looked at seriously what that would take.
I'm just a philosopher here on this kind of thing.
Some might call me a strategist in a way, but I don't, it's like I said at this Milton Milk Inform the other night, there were three guys up there, Gillespie and I like them all, Willie Brown and Harold Ford, they're all politicians.
They look at politics differently than I do.
When you look at politics as getting votes, when you look at politics as a matter of getting policy passed, and so you have to have a totally different view of it than I do.
And you have to pander to certain people and groups.
Sometimes you have to say things you don't really believe.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it the way it's apparently done by most people.
And I would suggest if you're going to do it and you've got a fired up reason to do it, then just follow your heart and mind as to where your motivation comes from.
And I bet you'd be surprised at the success that you have.
You can play up the fact you're an average guy all you want, but it's going to be your issues.
It's going to be your opinions on things and what you claim you want to want to do with the power you will have when you get there that'll really affect who votes for you.
I mean, you can overplay, I think, this average Joe thing because every politician does it.
They all came from the wrong side of the tracks.
They all came from poverty.
They've all seen misery.
They've all, oh, my daddy spanked me.
I can't tell you how many times when I was growing up to this.
It's all part of the formula.
Be genuine.
Be genuine.
You went in a landslide back after this.
Snurdley just asked me what it is I'm moving and grooving to in here.
I'm listening to Tower of Power.
So Very Hard to Go.
Just a great song.
Fabulous, too.
Great horn section there.
All right, folks.
In the next hour, you've heard me speak of my good friend Andrew McCarthy, who was a trial attorney, assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, which is Manhattan.
He was on the prosecution team, led the prosecution team that convicted the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.
He received an invitation from Eric Holder to join a confab to discuss what to do with detainees, a number of things, releasing these terrorists and so forth.
And he sent Holder a letter this morning politely declining the invitation.
And I want to read a portion of the letter to you in the next hour because it's gutsy and it is brilliant.
And one of the points he makes is since you are considering the prosecution of lawyers who give advice you don't agree with, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to join your task force since I disagree with what I have heard your plan is.
I'm paraphrasing the letter here, but I'll read you the relevant portions.
Now, a guy asked me just a moment ago, and I forgot in advising him if he's going to run for office, I forgot the most important thing, sadly.
And it just goes to show you how my instincts are still naive on this.
And that is, ladies and gentlemen, the whole notion of money.
What was the man's name?
What was the man's name?
And then Grant, it's a Texas Hill comfort to Grant, you got to outraise.
You got to have more money than everybody else.
I mean, it's not, the mayor of Indianapolis won with no money.
It's very rare, though, when that happens.
But you do have to go out and raise money.
And that's another reason I couldn't be in politics.
I just, I, to this day, I can't ask people for, I don't like asking people for a ride because then they're going to go ask me for a ride somewhere down the road.
I can't stick my hand out and ask people for money.
I just would never, ever be able to do it because they're all going to want to get paid back somehow.
But that's one of the requirements.
But he called the right person, nevertheless.
I am the leader of the Republican Party.
This was discussed again in the media last night.
Campbell Brown, no bias, no bull.
She's on maternity leaves to have some guest host in there.
But this is a portion of a report by Jessica Yellen about the new effort by the National Council for a New America to jump-start the Republican Party.
Only one in five Americans actually calls themselves a Republican.
That's down even since last November's election.
One of the problems they're facing is that the press keeps focusing on polarizing leaders like Governor Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Newt Gingrich.
Now, a group of congressional Republicans is trying to turn things around with a road show.
And guess who they've picked as the salesman for the new Republican Party?
Some not-so-new faces.
Senator John McCain, former governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, Mississippi Governor Haley Barber, and the one newcomer, Governor Bobby Jindal.
Now, they plan to hold town halls and get conversation going with folks who are independents and interested Democrats.
Now, I don't care about this.
I think it's they can do what they want, but I'll tell you, Newt's not going to be happy being left out of the group.
Newt will not be happy.
I don't know if Sarah Palin should be, but the headliner, the headliner of this roadshow, the new Republican Party, is McCain.
Why didn't they go get Arlen Spector?
I mean, the Democrats are out there saying we need to become more like them.
Pelosi is saying we need to become more like Democrats if we want to survive as a party.
So get Arlen Specter to lead this roadshow.
Carville, Situation Room CNN.
Will Blitzer asked him about this National Council for a New America, which is the McCain-led roadshow.
Question: What do you think of this new effort by the former governor of Florida Jeb Bush trying to rebrand the Republicans right now?
Come up with a new image to counter this notion that the Republicans are the party of no.
Well, you know, look, they've tried a lot of things.
They've tried the Sarah Palin thing that blow up in their face and the brush and Michael Steele and then the teabagging.
And that hasn't worked out very well.
Yeah, I kind of got a little bit of sympathy for them here.
They got to try something.
They just can't, you know, sit there and just take the pounding that they're taking.
I gave the recipe yesterday.
This is such a golden opportunity.
They tried the rush thing.
They tried the Sarah Palin thing.
They tried to teabag.
Hey, James, we don't have any teabaggers.
They're all on CNN.
They are.
Teabaggers are at CNN.
At any rate, what is this party of no business?
Damn right, we're the party of no.
We do say no to all of this far extreme radical leftism.
We do so.
What were the Democrats the past seven years?
They were no to even victory in Iraq.
These guys, they've been going to make the mistake if they allowed Democrat criticism to shape the way they do this roadshow.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
How about ABC showing the names and faces of two Americans hired by their country to help gather information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists involved in 9-11?
Just put their names out there.
Put their faces out there, making them targets for the rest of their lives and their families as well.
Way to go, ABC.
Yes, just over the line.
We'll be back.
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