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July 10, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:29
July 10, 2009, Friday, Hour #2
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It is the second hour of the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis.
Thanks, Johnny, from WBAP Dallas, Fort Worth.
Longtime Limbaugh affiliate.
I've had the honor of being the show before Rush since 1994.
Hopefully providing that quality lead-in and to deliver a service back to the Rush Limbaugh Show after all he's done for our station and all he's done for our country is an enormous, enormous privilege.
Got a bunch of things to talk about with all of you at 1-800-282-2882.
A little week in review, as any Friday talk show probably ought to be.
And a lot of calls here coming up.
But first, an opportunity to speak with some folks also arises on today's show.
One hour from now, pollster Scott Rasmussen will talk about that presidential index, which is currently at a minus five for President Obama.
We'll find out what that means.
But let's go to the real nuts and bolts of opposing that agenda.
And where does that happen?
It happens on Capitol Hill.
And it is a joy to welcome Congressman from Indiana, the chairman of the House Republican Conference out of Indiana's 6th District, the Honorable Mike Pence.
How you doing, sir?
Hey, Mark.
Great.
You're sounding great.
And mega dittos to you, my friend.
It is my joy.
The last time I talked to Mike Pence, we were on the same stage at an NRCC, a roundtable, National Republican Congressional Committee headed by my buddy and yours, Pete Sessions, from here in Texas, talking some fairness doctrine.
Before we get on to fighting the Obama agenda in 14 other ways, I think I sense there's been some headway on that.
We still have to really, really oppose the code language of localization and these corporate, these local advisory boards and things like that.
But where do you sense that battle?
Let's put our finger on the pulse of that since obviously listeners and hosts share a certain concern.
Well, let me say, Mark, I think it's very timely that you raised the issue with me.
I literally walked out of a meeting 15 minutes ago about an amendment that Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon and I are bringing on Monday, a broadcaster freedom amendment on an appropriations bill that's coming next week.
And we're not only going to give Congress an opportunity as we did a couple of years back to deny any funding to bring the fairness doctrine back.
We're also going to be bringing language to do away with the fairness doctrine by stealth.
But I'll tell you, for anyone within the sound of my voice who cherishes Rush Limbaugh and the broadcast freedom that makes great voices like Mark Davis possible around America, we urge every American to call their congressmen today, Monday, email them over the weekend, and tell them, give the Broadcaster Freedom Amendment an up or down vote on the floor of the Congress next week.
The Financial Services Appropriations Bill is where the FCC gets funded, oddly enough.
We're bringing the amendment next week.
But the Democrats have developed a pattern, Mark, this summer in the spending bills of denying Republican amendments, denying open participation.
So we're going to have to go to the committee on the Hill that allows amendments, file that amendment Monday.
But I expect if our Democrat colleagues hear from the American people starting today and over the weekend that we want an up or down vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Amendment, we'll get that amendment ruled in order.
And as it did two years ago, I believe it'll pass.
Every time freedom gets an up or down vote on the floor of the people's house, freedom always wins.
But it's not going to win if we don't have an up or down vote on the broadcaster freedom amendment.
We're filing it Monday, but every single member of Congress needs to hear from the people that they serve that they want that up or down vote.
You know, Liberty came to the floor of the House of Representatives in the form of cap and trade, and it didn't prevail so well the other day.
Well, I'll tell you what.
You know, I'm a big fan of the movie Apollo 11, or excuse me, Apollo 13.
They haven't made the Apollo 11 list.
11 was the prequel.
Yeah, the prequel.
But, you know, the Apollo 13 movie, that famous quote from Jim Lovell, who described Apollo 13 as a successful failure.
I got to tell you, I was never prouder of House Republicans than I've been over the last month as we turned that debate from all of this talk about the environment and climate change and green jobs, and we were able to expose the cap and trade bill as nothing more than a national energy tax that was going to raise the cost of living for every American by thousands of dollars per household.
The reason why that bill only passed by a couple of votes, 219, I think, to 212, was because Republicans and conservatives on Capitol Hill took our case to the American people.
And I believe we've got a fighting chance to stop that legislation in the Senate and bring forward something like the American Energy Act that I helped to develop in the Republican conference that says yes to more domestic drilling for oil and natural gas, yes to more conservation through tax incentives and credits, and it says yes to wind and solar and 100 new nuclear power plants in the next 20 years.
We can achieve energy independence in a way that creates jobs and achieves a cleaner environment.
We don't need a national energy tax.
We lost the vote, but Mark, I believe we won the argument.
We've set the table for the Senate to stop that national energy tax in its tracks.
It did result in a lot of light being shown on the truth about cap and tax, cap and trade.
It's known as officially, but it is cap and tax.
If you go about chronicling the, you started a sentence, the reason it passed so narrowly.
One of the reasons it passed so narrowly is I believe of eight actual Republicans who are not as hip to the liberty thing as you and I are, what ought to happen to them?
Look, I think every member of Congress ought to be judged on the totality of their record.
I strongly disagreed with my colleagues who saw their way clear to vote for the cap and trade bill.
But make no mistake about it, this is the agenda of the Obama administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
They drove that bill to the floor.
And I will tell you, whether those eight Republicans voted for it or not, I believe in my heart of hearts Nancy Pelosi would have gotten her votes to get that bill done on the floor of the Congress.
Now, that's not letting anybody off.
We have an honest difference of opinion on the issue.
But I got to tell you that having been here on Capitol Hill for more than eight years, I have never seen the kind of heavy-handed legislative tactics that we have seen under Democrat control over the last two years and never more heavy-handed than during this cap and trade debate.
Do you think as we look toward the rest of 09 and into the very, very important year of 2010, that I'm going to have Scott Rasmussen on pollster like one hour from right now, and he will chronicle it's just the latest snapshot.
Any poll is a snapshot.
But there are now more people who say they strongly oppose President Obama than strongly favor him.
37 to 32.
In the middle are other folks who are still trying to figure things out.
Do you believe that from cap and tax to the noxiousness of Obamacare and the socialized medicine that it will take us toward, to the environmental extremism and otherwise, to the absurdities of the stimulus?
Is the tide turning somewhat?
I don't want to invest too much, but I also don't want to ignore the fact that maybe folks are starting to wake up and smell the coffee a little.
Well, I love the panoramic view you took there, because while I think we lost the vote, but we won the argument on the national energy tax, the cap and trade bill.
I don't think the shift you're seeing in public attitudes about the administration and about Democrats and Congress is all about that bill.
I think it's a cumulative weight, as you just described very well, of this administration, this Democrat Congress, and frankly, let's be fair, of the last administration, who believe that we can borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing America.
The American people know better.
And all they've seen from the end of the last administration with the massive Wall Street bailout and a doubling of the national debt, they've seen this administration and Democrats in Congress kind of take us from bad to worse when it comes to this economy, when it comes to controlling the size and scope of government.
A trillion-dollar stimulus bill, I mean, the numbers are extraordinary.
I spoke on the House floor yesterday morning.
People can check out our remarks on the web if they want the data points.
Trillion-dollar stimulus bill is passed in February.
The president said if we don't borrow a trillion dollars from our children and grandchildren, that unemployment was going to go from 7.5% to 8%.
It's now 9.5%, the highest in 26 years.
Unemployment has risen by 1.96 million jobs loss since the stimulus bill was signed.
But remarkably, the President of the United States said a week ago that the recovery bill had done its job.
I mean, it's astonishing to me.
But I really do think there is a growing sense that the answer the Democrats have for what ails this country is more borrowing, more spending, more bailouts, a national energy tax, and now a government takeover of health care.
And I think the American people are saying enough is enough.
We know how to get America working again.
Fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C., and tax relief for working families, small businesses, and family farms.
And Republicans are ready to take that fight to the American people in the next 18 months.
Mike Pence joins us, Congressman of Indiana.
Just room for one final brief question, Mike.
Are you calling us from a bar?
What is going on in that room?
I'm actually calling you from the cloakroom during a vote series.
I'm just off the House of Representatives.
I'm teasing.
I'm teasing.
Yeah, it's right off the floor of the House.
And it kind of reminded me of the last time I had the privilege of being on the Rush Limbaugh show.
It was in the middle of the oil, the gas price protest last August from the cloakroom.
So it's something of a tradition.
It's funny, and I invoked, again, Pete Sessions, who heads the NRCC.
And by his invitation, I had a chance to come to, I think it was President Bush's second State of the Union or something.
And just walking around and hanging with you guys and walking the halls is just an amazing thing.
And not in a cloakroom, but there's a kind of a lounge that's just off the House floor up on sort of the concourse level.
And right, it's like 30 minutes before the State of the Union.
And we walk in there, and there's like 40 or 50 members of Congress, and he's introducing me to all his buddies, and some of these folks were familiar faced me, and some were not.
But it was just such a convivial atmosphere, just a bunch of nice folks.
It was Republicans, Democrats, everybody who's in there.
And it's just an interesting life you guys lead.
And I wonder about some of the conversations that are had during some of the downtime, when you're just sort of decompressing with your fellow members there.
And for the case of this final question in the Republican conference, is there a general upbeat mood that despite this onslaught of the Obama agenda, that maybe their actual audacity, to borrow that word again, is something that has sufficiently awakened enough people that we might really be able to get something done here in 2010.
Maybe not winning the majority back, but at least taking a big step in that direction.
Hey, look, there's no question, Mark, that as usual, you got your finger on it.
The mood has changed here.
Republicans are in the fight when every single Republican on Capitol Hill voted against the so-called stimulus bill.
Every single Republican on Capitol Hill opposed the president's budget that'll triple the national debt in the next 10 years.
And almost every single Republican dug in against that massive national energy tax with cap and trade.
I just want to tell you, our guys are in the fight.
But what we know is that there is a truism that we've been relearning here, and that is a minority in Congress plus the American people equals a majority.
And my challenge to your millions and millions of Russia's listeners out there, Mark, is to get engaged, get in the fight.
My guys back in Indiana are going to mikepence.com and signing up as never before.
People need to go to GOP.gov and sign up and get plugged in, contact either the conservative congressman or the conservative candidate in your congressional district and get behind him.
If the American people will step up on behalf of limited government, fiscal discipline, traditional moral values, we will take this Congress back and this country back in 2010.
Serving the 6th District of Indiana and with it, the United States as a whole.
Mike Pence, always an honor, man.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Mark.
God bless you.
Same to you.
That's a champ of a guy right there.
All righty.
Let us pause, come back, dive in.
Anything in the Q ⁇ A with Mike that gives you some thoughts you want to share?
1-800-282-2882 is the place to share them because after all, it's the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis, filling in, and we're all back together right after this.
It is the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
Rush will return for the Monday Rush Limbaugh Show.
So for the rest of today, it's you and me.
Mark Davis out of WBAP, Dallas, Fort Worth.
Joy to be here.
I know Mr. Stein and Mr. Belling, the other marks on the relief bench, are grateful for your listenership this week, and I enjoyed hearing them.
And thanks a lot for hanging out with me today.
Rush is back on Monday.
Always go to rushlimbaugh.com for the latest in Russia's world.
And the phone number, of course, is 1-800-282-2882.
Let's go to those phones and see what is there.
Thanks to Congressman Mike Pence for joining us.
Polster Scott Rasmussen will help us take a look at some poll numbers that may be starting to tilt away from the White House a little.
He'll join us at the beginning of next hour.
If you're just joining us, we had a bunch of different issues in the first hour, and one of them was the idea that a report done for the Pentagon has come out with that suggests a smoking ban in the military.
The argument for it is that a healthier military is a good thing.
That's true on its face.
And yet, for me and for most of the callers we took, there's just something that seems wrong about telling that tell it tell that soldier that he can't blaze up a Marlboro after a day of dodging bullets in Afghanistan.
I mean, wow.
That's just tricky.
That's just tricky for me.
And then the report also said that let's have a smoke-free requirement for new recruits and new officers.
And I asked then, and I'll ask now, because I would love to think that the coming years will result in a need for fewer rather than more deployments out in the war on terror, because hopefully it's working and Iraq is stable and Afghanistan becomes stable.
That is my great wish.
It may not happen.
And hopefully we'll at some point have a president who recognizes that the war on terror must be fought conscientiously and continuously until it succeeds.
And that means we might have a need for a whole lot more officers and a whole lot more soldiers.
And I just don't think I'm in the mood to blow a bunch of them off because they smoke.
So anyway, there was that.
And boy, I don't know if the gentleman has a chance of getting back in, but I'll tell you what, there was a guy who was on a cell phone, and you know how cell phones are.
He was a Marine and he was for the smoking ban.
Let me do the following, in fact.
Let me do the following.
We're going to go to some ancillary issues and some just outright other stuff.
On the military smoking ban, I think I've properly, hopefully described the reason to oppose it.
If you think the smoking ban in the military is a good idea, get with me and we'll hash that out.
Meanwhile, though, on something similar, let's go to Berwin, Illinois and Dan, Mark Davis on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Nice to have you.
Hi, Mark.
How's it going?
I have a question for you, and that would be, if you are against the smoking ban in the military, and last hour you said you were all about liberty, I'd like to know why you authored a column in, I think, the Dallas Morning News in favor of sobriety checkpoints.
Right.
Absolutely fair question.
I write a column in the Dallas Morning News every Wednesday.
Go to dallasnews.com slash opinion.
And there had been a controversy locally about sobriety checkpoints.
I do not feel they are a requirement.
I wouldn't say that a city must have them.
But if they want them, I'm okay with them with the conditions that usually accompany them.
In problem areas where there tends to be a lot of drunk driving, where it is thoroughly random.
We're not picking certain character types out or anything like that.
I'm totally all right with that.
Because you're in the already heavily regulated environment of the road.
It's not like somebody coming into your house.
And so I'm perfectly fine with that.
Why aren't you?
Or if you're not.
Pardon me?
Why aren't you, if I presume they are?
Well, I don't think it's a good idea because I think it's just another infringement on our constitutional rights.
No, that's nonsense.
Exceptions to the Constitution that the Supreme Court has allowed.
I mean, you don't like the, I mean, there's no constitutional basis for this whatsoever.
Unless one thinks it's an unreasonable search.
I mean, there's a long list of things that we just don't want.
There's a long list of things that we just don't think are a good idea.
The smoking bans are insane.
Having government tell a restaurant what its smoking rules can be is patently insane, but it's constitutional.
If a government is stupid enough to have one, if a city's dumb enough to have them, they can have them.
Sobriety checkpoints, the Fourth Amendment is one of my favorites, but it's a tricky one, isn't it?
It's a tricky one.
You know why?
Unreasonable search and seizure.
Well, what's reasonable to somebody might be unreasonable to somebody else, as I guess we've just learned.
All righty, more on these and other issues as we continue.
Mark Davis in for Rush on this Friday, and we will continue.
Don't move.
Banging the gong of liberty across the talk radio landscape.
It's the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in.
Rush is back on Monday.
All right, let's take some things in some directions here, shall we?
Let me throw out a few things from the week gone by and some things that are as fresh as today's headlines.
And then coming up at the top of the next hour, pollster Scott Rasmussen.
We'll talk to him about his company's latest findings about a growing number of people who say they strongly oppose the president versus a somewhat winnowing number of folks who say they strongly support him.
And we'll talk about who are the folks in the middle and how important are they.
And whenever we talk to pollsters, I'm always interested in methodology about it, because I know many of you are interested in or suspicious of the methodology.
And we've all seen the poll that is clearly designed to get an expected result or a desired result.
And Erasmus have just always struck me as one of the best.
And even when they've delivered results I didn't like.
And so we'll talk to Scott about that.
Between now and then, though, let me see, let me see.
You know what Monday is going to be.
Just are you bracing yourselves for Monday?
It's hard to predict the future, but hang on a second.
I believe I know what Rush is going to be talking about on Monday, because by the time the Rush Limbaugh show starts on Monday, featuring Rush himself, I'm guessing there will be already plenty of golden audio from the Sotomayor hearings.
Yes, it is the adventure that lies ahead for however many days it takes the Senate.
Well, first the Judiciary Committee to figure out what it's going to do, as if that's in doubt, and then the full Senate to figure out what it's going to do, and even that may not be in doubt.
When you get, and this is a development from the week gone by, lately you've had Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in America, as the Senate minority leader, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.
These guys have been saying some stuff that gives a fellow hope that maybe some people mean it when they talk about a Supreme Court that needs to contain people who are not activists, and if I may throw in, not racists, as Judge Sotomayor clearly is.
Now, there are big-time racists, small-time racists, people who are racist a whole lot, and people who are racist just a little.
And you can place her wherever on that spectrum you like.
But if the words come out of your mouth, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion, parentheses, than a gringo.
That is racist.
And I tap danced, not tap-danced.
I tolerated the tap dance for a little bit of people who said, well, you know, sometimes you can say racist things and not really be a racist.
Well, guess what?
No, you can't.
Now, I'm not going to suggest that this is some seething, some woman filled with seething hatred and mistrust of white people or anybody else.
But there's, I'm sorry, it's racist.
If during, you know, the Alito hearings you'd said, you know, as a white guy, I just kind of think I'm a little quicker on the uptake than maybe some blacks and Hispanics.
Just me talking.
Just say it.
How long would that have lasted?
It's racist.
Anyway, though, back to the folks in the Senate.
So you've got some people, and you wonder how it's going to go.
Is the Senate going to roll over?
Are they going to rubber stamp Judge Sotomayor?
And I don't know the answer to that.
I guess we'll see.
But for a while there, one of the really energizing voices, and the reason it was sort of energizing is because you don't always know exactly where this guy's going to go.
And a truly good guy out of South Carolina, that's Lindsey Graham, who expressed exactly the right concerns about Judge Sotomayor.
But now, a quote from this past week involves Senator Graham saying, you know, about the only way she's not going to be on the court is if she really performs badly in the hearings.
And, you know, I can sort of see myself voting for her.
What?
Now, I don't expect that Lindsey Graham will be the only Republican voting for her.
One can hope what one hopes, but for whatever reason, there will be Republicans who vote for Judge Sotomayor.
Okay, they have the freedom to do that.
And we have the freedom to react in a certain way.
You may react how you wish.
Here's how I'm going to react.
For any Republican member of the United States Senate who votes for Judge Sotomayor to reach the Supreme Court, I don't ever, and I mean ever, ever want to hear from that senator ever one syllable about judicial activism,
about the need for the Supreme Court to interpret law and not craft it, about the need to honor the Constitution and the founders' intent.
I don't need to hear one stinking word on those subjects from any Republican senator who votes for Judge Sotomayor.
She is a woman of considerable accomplishment.
She's been a judge for a long time, been an attorney for a long time.
I'm as energized as the next person by the history of the first Latina.
That's all great.
Just like I thought it was really cool we had a black president until I'd found out exactly how deep the disaster would be.
So that's fine.
I'm all about the history.
That's great.
But sometimes you got to actually look at what's in the head and hearts of these people making all this history.
So that's just it.
If a Republican wants to vote for Judge Sotomayor, you knock yourself out.
Go right ahead.
But I had better not hear one peep from a Republican voting for her ever again about sticking to the constitutional precepts, about honoring the founding fathers by honoring the words they gave us, about judicial activism in general.
Because the firefighters case in particular shows that this is a woman who is more than happy to make stuff up, more than happy to make the law bend to what she thinks is fair.
And for the millionth time, I can't believe I have to say this.
And for many of you in the audience, I don't.
And, you know, good for you.
But for plenty, I do.
And others need to say it.
There's a reason why that statue of Lady Justice, the Justice Statue, is blindfolded.
It's blindfolded.
You know why?
Because it doesn't matter what color anybody is when they're in court.
It doesn't matter what socioeconomic status anybody is when they're in court.
It doesn't matter if anybody's gay.
It doesn't matter if anybody's anything.
What matters is what side are they on and which side most honors the law.
Which side deserves to win when the scales of the law are applied.
And President Obama did us the favor of telegraphing this to us.
I want a Supreme Court justice who knows what it's like to have the system not work for you.
What?
What?
And the supposition that the court is there, all of this, that the court is there for the little guy.
No, it's not.
It's there for the little guy if the little guy is on the side of the law.
Of all the cases that will come before the Supreme Court, of all the cases that will come before any court, sometimes, maybe even most times, the little guy will have been screwed and the law needs to help him out.
And if he's on the side of the law, I hope the law does help him out.
And we can all feel good about that.
Da da da, go down the road.
Sometimes the little guy is an idiot.
Sometimes the lawsuit is frivolous.
Sometimes the little guy does not have the law on his side.
You know who has the law on its side sometimes?
Maybe it's a big, nasty company.
Maybe a big, seething mega corporation is in court.
And you know what?
Maybe it's right sometimes.
On the times that it's right, it deserves to win.
And in big company versus the little guy, if you go in thinking, well, you know, it's the little guy or it's a big, nasty company.
And how do I feel about little guys and big, nasty companies?
Forget how you feel about little guys and big, nasty companies.
The definition of being a judge requires that you forget how you feel, that you completely subjugate and suppress and shelve and put aside for the purpose of your decision how you feel about the folks before you, the parties before you.
That's why the statue is blind.
People like Sonia Sotomayor peel that blindfold down so we can see, huh?
What color are the people before me?
Because in the firefighter case, she was okay with getting rid of the entire promotional exam because black guys didn't pass it.
Well, I'm really sorry that black guys didn't pass it.
I'm really, really sorry.
So we're going to deny promotions to the white guys and ironically, the Hispanic guys who did?
That's insane.
And we're going to put this on the Supreme Court.
Now, granted, she won't be the only one.
She won't be the only one.
There's already, and obviously in replacing Souter, it's not like there's a whole complexion change there.
It's not like there's a whole complexion change.
There are people there from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Stephen Breyer to others who are right there with her and from Roe v. Wade on fashioning all kinds of law, not based on what the law says or what the Constitution says, but just on the way they think that things ought to be.
You know, and just to show that I'm willing to apply this to myself, I don't want Roe versus Wade overturned because I'm pro-life.
My personal pro-life-ness is irrelevant to what I should want in Roe versus Wade.
Because I'm pro-life or somebody else is pro-choice, that's exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about putting aside.
The Constitution is not a vehicle through which your political, your desired political result is brought about.
I want Roe v. Wade overturned so the Constitution can be honored.
How's the Constitution honored?
By every state having its own abortion laws.
Period.
That means in some states, those abortion laws will be restrictive, as I'd like them to be.
In some states, those abortion laws will be enormously permissive, which I will lament.
But that's what the Constitution requires.
The Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice.
The 10th Amendment itself says that, you know what, if we don't mention it in here, it's kind of left to the people in the states.
Should be true of abortion, should be true of gay marriage.
And there are two kinds of folks, those that either get that or don't.
Those that don't have no business on the Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, we already have them and we don't need any more.
So let me break, come back, take your calls on this, whatever else you want to do.
Monday's going to be huge.
We'll find out what's going on with the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings on Judge Sotomayor.
But I'll just let those words sort of rattle around all weekend, if you wish.
I mean, I know it's just me, the fill-in guy.
And you'll get a whole bunch of Russia's opinions on this on Monday.
But I'd better not hear one thing from any Republican senator who votes for Judge Sotomayor.
Not one thing from those senators ever again about the founders and their words and how important it is to cleave to those words and how important it is to honor the Constitution because this woman shreds the Constitution on her political whim.
And so, so that's just it.
Are Republicans free to vote for?
Of course they are.
Of course they are.
But I mean it.
Not one peep from you, if you do, about judicial activism ever, ever again.
Deal?
Deal?
So anyway, anyway.
All right, 1-800-282-2882-1-800-282-2882-RushLimbaugh.com on the web.
I'm Mark Davis filling in for Rush.
Let's do some calls and let's do them next.
It's the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in.
Let's do a little telephone action coming up the top of the next hour.
Polster Scott Rasmussen, and then we'll continue with anything else you want.
I got some fresh stuff to bring in, some other things that have been in progress.
It is easy for me and was easy for me a moment ago to lay down this edict.
Republican senators better not vote for Sodomayor.
And if you do, you better not lecture me anymore about judicial activism.
That is harder for some senators than others.
And on that point, let's go to Savannah, Georgia, Mark.
Hi, Mark Davis in for Rush.
What you got?
Mark, it's a pleasure to be on the show with you.
Today's USA Today points out that a lot of Hispanics and Latinos, they strongly support Sodomayor.
And it kind of puts a lot of these Republican senators in a bind if they vote against her because their very jobs might be on the line.
So I wanted to have your thoughts on that.
That is a genius point.
And the answer is, once again, easy to say, and it will be hard for senators to hear.
I can't imagine anybody having a tougher ride in exactly what you've talked about than the two Republicans who are in the state in which I sit in Texas, and that's Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn.
Do I feel the same way about them?
Yes, I do.
And I have to, because if I tell a senator, if I'd have sort of augmented that segment a few moments ago, if I'd have laid down that principle, that rock-solid principle of you'd better not lecture me about judicial activism if you vote for Sodomayora.
But, you know, if you're in a state with a lot of Hispanics, I understand.
Go ahead, do what you got to do.
Good Lord, man.
That's what got us into this trouble.
That kind of wimpiness, that kind of identity politics.
And I know, I know, I know these guys look in the mirror and these women and men look at the way the Hispanic population properly is enthused about Judge Sotomayor.
And that is why I would call on those people to, they may need to explain themselves at length multiple times and tell these folks, I cannot wait for a Hispanic nominee that I can vote for.
I cannot wait to have a nominee, you know, the first whatever to be whatever, but the first turnstile has got, I mean, in black president, anybody who voted for Barack Obama just because he's black, you know, who say, well, I think I disagree with him about most things, but he's a black guy, so let's do that.
Well, yeah, how's that working out for you right now?
So, I mean, I can't wait till we have a black president, too, you know, but I'm hoping to God, until we have another black president now, and I'm hoping it's somebody who actually believes in what I believe.
So I know it's easy for me to say, hard for these folks to do, so hard that they may not in fact be able to do it.
But if they don't, I'm afraid I would say exactly the same thing.
Anybody voting for Judge Sotomayor for job preservation, someone who puts their own survival in the political climate of the moment ahead of the Constitution, I just don't have a lot of use for.
So, and I don't mean to be harsh, but that's just it.
And I love Senator Cornyn.
I love Senator Hutchinson.
Senator Hutchins is going to come try to be governor of our state.
And we'll see.
Well, that's, well, this vote has ramifications that stretch long and far and wide.
But my opinion does not change one molecule because the senator happens to have some Hispanic constituents who are all jazzed up about a Hispanic nominee.
Dr. King's wish was for us to live in a world where that doesn't matter so much anymore.
So let's help bring it about by making Judge Sotomayor's views more important than her ethnicity.
How about that?
Mark Davis, be right back.
Two hours down and one to go on the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in from WBAP Dallas Fort Worth.
Let me give you a little thumbnail of how the next hour is going to go.
We're going to open it up and talk poll numbers with Scott Rasmussen, one of the best in the business.
Then I'm going to tell you about an interview that's coming out in the Sunday New York Times magazine with the aforementioned Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Not one but two shocking things in it.
And Prince Charles says, Prince Charles, I always go to him for clarity, says we have 96 months to save the world.
Thank you, Prince Charles.
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