RUSH: The Wall Street Journal today editorializes and is applauding Feingold for being honest, which was my take yesterday. This is good! It’s a loser for them, but they’re telling us exactly what their agenda is. Their agenda is the impeachment of President Bush, and the only way that’s going to happen is if they win the House or the Senate. That’s what their objective is, and I predicted this. I told you this starting in 2000. They hate this guy. If they ever get the chance to impeach him, they will. I said if they lose the 2004 presidential race, impeachment’s gonna be at the top of their agenda. It looks like Feingold isn’t going to let this go.
Now, this is somewhat comical to me, but it’s also a great lesson for all of us. Feingold accused his fellow Democrats yesterday of cowering rather than joining him on trying to censure President Bush over domestic spying. “Democrats run and hide” when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters. Well, this is just fine from the guy who fled the Senate floor after announcing his resolution for censure, wouldn’t stay and debate it with Arlen Specter or anybody else. His Democrat cohorts in the Senate turned white as Casper the ghost and started quaking in fear, they don’t want to talk about it.
Here’s a Washington Post story today: “Democratic senators, filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday, looked as if they’d seen a ghost. ‘I haven’t read it,’ demurred Barack Obama (Ill.). ‘I really can’t right now,’ John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters — an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski.” It’s not the height of Mikulski that offers the security of a hiding place, though. So she had to kneel down. “‘Ask her after lunch,’ offered Clinton’s spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire. In a sense, they were… So nonplused were Democrats that even Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), known for his near-daily news conferences, made history by declaring, ‘I’m not going to comment.’ Would he have a comment later? ‘I dunno,’ the suddenly shy senator said… ‘Most of us feel at best it’s premature,” announced Sen. Christopher Dodd (Conn.). ‘I don’t think anyone can say with any certainty at this juncture that what happened is illegal.'” No, in fact we can say for certain that it is legal. We can say with certainty that the program has been passed on by a number of different people, judges, it was run by members of Congress in the Senate, eight members, they know about it.
There was nothing illegal about the program. It has been substantiated and affirmed a number of times. This is nothing more than another media drive-by along with the Democrats riding in the jump seat lobbing these bullets. They are trying to make something out of nothing. There’s nothing illegal about the NSA spy program. All it is is this country trying to listen into Mohammed Atta or any other Al-Qaeda guy when he’s calling from some country into the United States or an outgoing call. It’s not domestic spying, never has been domestic spying. The Democrats are making it all up and Feingold knows this, but he’s playing this for political purposes with the base. But what they’re doing here, folks, is making it loud and clear what they’re going to campaign on. Somebody in one of our sound bites yesterday, it was The Punk, McAuliffe, “What are you going to run on, 2008?” “We’re going to run against a failed presidency.”
See, they look at these approval numbers — 34, 36, 38, 39, and they think the rest of the country hates Bush the way they do. They are convinced the country hates Bush. They are convinced the country wants us out of Iraq. They are convinced the country wants them in power, and they don’t think they have to have an agenda. They don’t think they have to have a plan. They think the country is just like they are, so sick and tired, filled with rage and hatred at Bush, that they can’t wait ’til ’06 and vote him out. So to play on that they’re going to actually run on the impeachment and censure of George W. Bush. Now, the reason these Democrats are running away from it now is because some of them have to have some sense to know that this is too early to blow it out there, and have fear that it’s just not the way to go and isn’t going to work. So Feingold is accusing all these Democrats who hid behind Mikulski, hid behind lunch carts, John Kerry, Vietnam veteran, running past a pack of wild media, unable to stop and tell them what he thought of this. Feingold is out there accusing them of being cowards and cowering in the corner while he himself wouldn’t hang around the Senate floor to debate Arlen Specter or anybody else on his own censure motion. Folks, I’m telling you, these people think they’re back on top now. They think that they’ve gained control of the political momentum. It’s fascinating.
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I want to go back to Russ Feingold because I have some points here to make about this. This thing that Feingold’s done with this suggested censure — and, boy, you ought to go to some of the Democrat blogs. It’s fun, folks. Go to Democrat Underground and read these people. They are just beside themselves that the Democrats in the Senate will not go along with Feingold, that he’s just a coward. It is comical. It’s also, if you haven’t done this before, it’s eye opening to find out who these people are. I mean, it’s a new breed of cat in the American political system. I am convinced it is, but it’s unfolding just as I have predicted time and time again. Liberals cannot control their radical instincts. They believe that their deep hatred of the president is shared by most Americans. They look at these opinion polls and they say, “The country hates Bush! Good, we’re right where we want to be, because America agrees with us.”
They believe that a president who wants to lawfully intercept calls from terrorists who killed thousands of us and who want to kill many more of us, they believe that a commander-in-chief who wants to intercept calls from terrorists is deserving of censure and perhaps deserving of impeachment and removal from office. Well, you talk about living in a bubble, bring this debate on! I want these Democrats in the Senate who are hiding behind Barbara Mikulski and food carts and sneaking outside in back entrances, to come out and just tell us. I’ve been asking them to do this for years. Be who you are, tell us what you believe. Feingold deserves applause. (Clapping.) Feingold’s telling us who he is, Feingold is telling us what he wants, Feingold is telling us what he stands for. He’s out there trying to convince the American people. Let’s have the debate, ladies and gentlemen, because this is part of the great unmasking of contemporary liberalism, the modern Democratic Party.
I mentioned the Wall Street Journal’s editorial today. They said Feingold deserves credit for his candor, because what he’s doing is revealing what a lot of Democrats really want. They said, “Come on, guys, join the censure, join this impeachment party. Have the courage of your convictions.” In a way, Feingold is right, you’re a bunch of cowards. He knows that you all agree with him but you won’t stand up with him. Even though he runs away, too. (Laughing.) What a picture, what a scene this is. But he knows that all these people agree with him. So stand up with him. Make your case, publicly, make it proudly, make it boldly. If President Bush, come on, now, if President Bush has done what you have accused him of doing, then follow the logic of your beliefs. In that sense, Senator Feingold is on to something here. Democrats are cowering from making the case of their deepest convictions. Look, it’s like my new golf pro told me, “You gotta be reckless out there. You gotta take chances. The more you dial back, the more restrained you get, the more problems you’re going to have. Don’t be focused on outcomes, just stay focused on the process and eventually the outcome will come.”
The Democrats are not being reckless. The Democrats are cowering. Here’s their deepest-held belief: Bush sucks. Bush is a criminal. Bush lies. Bush took us into Iraq for no reason. Bush is spying on American people. My God, folks, if they really believed that, they can’t wait for the November elections. They’ve got to impeach him now. They’ve got to start now. This is too important, if they really believe this. So come on, join me, libs, join me all you Democrats, I don’t cower in the corner here. I tell you what I think. I don’t care what the subject is and I’m proud to do so. I love sharing my passions with people. I love sharing my convictions. I would hate to go through life having to be somebody I’m not, having to pretend that I’m something I’m not. I don’t do that. That would make me a fraud, like most of you Democrats and liberals are, and I’m not going to join you.
I want you to join me. Make your case. Throw your caution to the wind out there. Let’s have this debate, publicly, openly, immediately, over a prolonged period of time. And let’s do it before the election. Run on what you believe. Make the case that George W. Bush should be punished for not signing onto the Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights, for protecting Americans from death and carnage, that he should be impeached for waging and winning the war on terrorism, for taking the fight to the enemy, for taking the Constitution seriously. He should be impeached, come out and make the case. I want to see the articles. It’s about time. You gotta do something because the ports issue has been forgotten. It’s long gone. So join me, won’t you, in honesty, forthrightness, and recklessness in politics.
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I want to share with you something else that I saw in The Note today, ABC’s The Note, talked about Howard Dean. But to get to that, I have to go back to the Democrats here and once again appeal to your base instincts. Come on out and join us, join us in the fight here in the arena of ideas, come on out, come on out. We know what you stand for. You think Bush ought to be impeached. Run on it. Join your guy. Russ Feingold, your base is practically suicidal here over the fact that you are such cowards. The port story, you know, the port issue is about forgotten. What this tells us, the port story, they were just orgasmic. “A-ha, we can finally show people that we are strong on national security.”
Well, now that the port issue is forgotten, what does Feingold do? Wants to impeach the president for trying to protect the country. And not over the ports deal. No, no, no. For going into Iraq and for domestic spying programs that are not domestic spying. So what is obvious here, what do we conclude? We conclude being weak, being McGovernites, being weak on national defense, is in the DNA of these Democrats and the American left; it’s their default position. One way or the other, no matter what happens, one way or the other they’re going to return to the we hate America, America is to blame, America is the problem, we’re weak on national security Democrats. They’re like bees drawn to honey. They just can’t help it. It’s in the DNA, no matter happens they’re going to do it, even after 9/11, even in the midst of the war on terror, even in the midst of the war in Iraq, they are trying to undermine their own country, and their own president, and they’re talking about impeaching him. I say, run on it! Campaign on it. Be honest. Don’t just have one senator go out there and carry the ball on this.
The port story, the port deal gave liberals and Democrats the confidence now. See, they think they can run and win on national security issues. They think they won the ports deal and they’re going to find out soon enough that all this confidence that they have is misplaced, and in the process what’s going to happen — we hear all this talk about the disunity on the Republican side and everybody running away from Bush and there may be some of that going, but you don’t know about the deep fissures — a little oil lingo there — you don’t know about the deep fissures that run through the Democratic Party. You don’t know how they’re going to grow as the liberal base gets more and more stoked up, more and more angry, more and more radical, more and more demanding, and then more and more PO’d because their party elected officials do not do what they want them to do. We can actually now say it’s official: nuttiness is the standard of seriousness for the Democratic Party and the American left. Nuttiness is the standard of seriousness. Just like the profundity that I offered yesterday, “Emotional satisfaction substitutes for victory for these people.”
They don’t even really care about winning. Their base just wants to feel validated in their rage. They just want to feel at home in their rage. Now, this thing that I read in The Note today, ABC’s The Note, there’s a quote from Howard Dean on February 9th. He was on Good Morning America. “What we don’t approve of is breaking the law in order to spy on Americans. The present law is very adequate… All we ask is that this not turn, we not turn into a country like Iran, where the president of Iran can do anything they want at anytime.” ABC News caught up with Howard Dean Tuesday. He was asked about this and said, (paraphrasing) “We’re not going to get into that,” and he was also asked about the Feingold, “We’re not going to get into Feingold, we’re not going to get into that now.” Even Dean, who is the grand pooh-bah and the surrogate father of all these kooks out there in Kooksville, the Democrat Underground and all these — even Dean doesn’t want to get on board yet with Feingold on this. Why not, Howard? All you’ve said, like John Kerry and the rest of the crowd, is the president’s breaking the law. You just said it in The Note, you said it on February 9th, breaking the law is almost like the president of Iran. This is very serious. He’s turning this into a theocratic dictatorship like Iran, he’s imperiling the Constitution, very serious. You don’t have time to wait. It is too desperate. It is too serious. You can’t just punt. You can’t just go out there and make these claims and then retreat behind Barbara Mikulski and a food cart. You just can’t do that.
Well, if you’re just joining us, Hillary Clinton hid behind Barbara Mikulski and a food cart yesterday from the press who wanted to know what she thought of Feingold’s censure measure. I just pointed out that if you’re going to hide behind Mikulski — Mikulski is like 4’11” or 4’10” — If you’re going to hide behind Mikulski, it’s not her height that you’re hiding behind. I’m going to tell you, you’ve got the Hildebeast hiding behind Mikulski, can you imagine the sight there? I don’t want to get into that. I’m sidetracking myself. But I mean you’re making some serious charges here, the Democrats are, serious, serious charges. And you’re unwilling to take a stand on this with him. You are unwilling to join him, and I just think that it’s about time that you do. Folks, does it seem to you like the media is doing more Bush polls than they did tracking polls during an election? It seems like every day we get a new one, and whatever the number is it’s lower than it’s ever been.
You know, it’s incredible. By the way, this little rant that I just did on Feingold and his censure movement, you know, I wasn’t going to comment on this. It happened again yesterday and I let it slide by again, preferring to stay focused on the issues. But I have left unanswered a thought that must be answered. Once again there’s some caller on this program challenging me, “Why are you defending the president?” Why does anybody defend the president? My question is, why do I, or why does anybody else have to apologize for defending the president? Defending the president when we’re at war? What’s next? Why are you defending our side against Al-Qaeda? Has the Bush-hating left become that mainstream? Has the Hollywood left become that — well, of course not. But they have this presumption that they are mainstream. They have this presumption they still dominate. That’s the illusion that they’re still living under, and so why are you defending the president? I took it the wrong way. I assumed, “Why are you in the tank, you’ll defend Bush no matter what just because of partisanship.” Who has to make excuses for defending the president? The real question is, where are you people at your country’s time of need? What are you doing trying to undermine the president? What are you doing trying to undermine the military? What are you doing trying to undermine our war effort? What are you doing trying to sabotage our ability to wage war against this enemy? What do you mean, defend the president? I’m proud to. I’m proud to defend the country, and I will continue to do so.
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