{"id":27260,"date":"2007-10-24T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:45:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T04:45:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:45:31","slug":"disgusting_democrats_drive_bys_politicize_the_california_wildfires2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/10\/24\/disgusting_democrats_drive_bys_politicize_the_california_wildfires2\/","title":{"rendered":"Disgusting Democrats, Drive-Bys Politicize the California Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RUSH: And I\u2019m going to tell you exactly why you feel that way, because I bet you a lot of people are just fit to be tied. Snerdley just said to me, I saw him staring intently right into my eyes, I wasn\u2019t saying anything. I said, ‘What are you staring at?\u2019 He said, ‘It feels like one of these days everything is spinning out of control, like nothing\u2019s going right.\u2019 Well, for me that started last night. I blew my top so many times last night and I was ready to blow my top this morning. I had so many just BS minutia things going that prevented me from doing work I needed to do, and they\u2019re still going on, but, nevertheless, we\u2019re here, behind the Golden EIB Microphone. We\u2019ve got broadcast excellence straight ahead. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. E-mail address, Rush@eibnet.com. <\/p>\n

If you feel like things are spinning out of control; if you think nothing is going right, I\u2019ll tell you what the primary reason for it is. If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019re watching these fires; you\u2019re watching a million people evacuated; these are homes. Now, there may be just stuff in those homes that you can replace, but these are homes. The stuff is what made those structures homes and people are losing them left and right. This is worse than any hurricane and what are we getting? We\u2019re getting the Democrats politicizing it. They\u2019re blaming Bush. They\u2019re blaming the war in Iraq. They\u2019re blaming global warming, for a natural disaster. Drudge found an AP story that was on USA Today from 2003: ”FBI: Al-Qaeda Detainee Spoke of Fire Plot.\u2019 The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States. Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn\u2019t see a need to act further on it.\u2019 Ah, it\u2019s speculation. It\u2019s just an interesting story. This is obviously now from four years ago. Nobody\u2019s come forward to claim any credit. It\u2019s just interesting to throw into the mix out there. <\/p>\n

But this is a genuine disaster, and you see a lot of people are talking about the differences between Hurricane Katrina and the Superdome and Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. There are myriad differences between the Superdome and Qualcomm Stadium, beyond the obvious. One of the primary differences is that the local and state officials in California have done their job in getting people out of the danger. In New Orleans they screwed that up. They didn\u2019t get all the people evacuated, and then the roads finally got damaged and flooded and they couldn\u2019t get people out of there, so you had all the mayhem in the Convention Center and the Superdome. The Drive-By Media is trying to blow this thing up in California in ways they did with Katrina because they think they really did a great job with Katrina. There are too many witnesses out there. They cannot tell things that are not true. That\u2019s a little side issue. The point is, you have this disaster happening, you have local and state officials who are doing fine, don\u2019t need FEMA in there, the feds are going to get in there, but they\u2019re doing a great job handling this and protecting life and doing their best to save it. Five deaths in all of this, which is amazing when you consider this stuff just started five o\u2019clock in the morning. People woke up in many areas of California to see the sky glowing red and a glowing orange, and they had to get the hell out of there. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got stories about, ‘Oh, Hollywood is having to shut down and Hollywood this and Hollywood that.\u2019 It ain\u2019t about Hollywood. There are a whole lot of people out there being affected by this. A million people evacuated, San Diego Chargers had to decamp, go to Arizona, don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going to play their game Sunday. It was scheduled for San Diego, Qualcomm Stadium, but all depends on what happens with the fires. In the midst of all of this, which is a genuine human tragedy, we\u2019ve got Democrats politicizing it. We hear talk all over the country, and we have for the last three or four years, people have called here, discussed it, ‘Rush, I\u2019m just feeling, I guess, depressed,\u2019 and you\u2019re depressed because the Drive-By Media had been reporting wrong news, bad news, trying to make you think the economy was going to hell in a handbasket, we\u2019re losing the war in Iraq, we got terrorists held against their will, all this stuff that made no sense whatsoever. It\u2019s the same thing happening here with these fires. Plus, just the fires themselves, without any of the accompanying politicking going on about this, you have just the destruction that is visible and massive on television every day and every night. I guess we need to start with this, the pi&egrave;ce de r&eacute;sistance. Here is Dingy Harry Reid. Folks, he is losing it. This was at a press conference yesterday about global warming and the fires in California. He has his big energy bill coming up, and he\u2019s trying to get it passed, and listen to what he said.<\/p>\n

REID: One reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado basin is going dry is because of global warming.<\/p>\n

RUSH: There is a blatant attempt to politicize this, and people don\u2019t want to hear this right now, and everybody, ‘What, global warming responsible for fires?\u2019 We have fires every year. We have fires every decade. We had fires on this planet for as long as the planet\u2019s been around, lightning strikes, who knows how these fires were started. But it\u2019s a tinderbox out there. If we want to start assigning political blame, we can do that, but now is not the time. But then later on, about six minutes later, a reporter said to him:<\/p>\n

REPORTER: You said that the reason the fires are burning in California is global warming.<\/p>\n

REID: No. Here\u2019s — here\u2019s what… I didn\u2019t say the reason the fires were burning in Southern California is global warming.<\/p>\n

RUSH: He said it and then he denied it in a period of six minutes. I want to play these two cuts back-to-back. We\u2019ll start again. This is Harry Reid late yesterday on Capitol Hill holding a press conference about global warming on fires.<\/p>\n

REID: One reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado basin is going dry is because of global warming.<\/p>\n

REPORTER: You said that the reason the fires are burning in California is global warming.<\/p>\n

REID: No. Here\u2019s — here\u2019s what.. I didn\u2019t say the reason the fires were burning in Southern California is global warming.<\/p>\n

RUSH: But he did. He\u2019s an idiot. He also doesn\u2019t know, we pointed this out yesterday, it\u2019s a desert! There is no water there. They have to bring water in from any number of places. They put a town — they populated a desert — which is fine and dandy, but it\u2019s got certain characteristics of a desert and one of those characteristics is it\u2019s dry. Then you have the wacko environmentalists who will not let anybody go in and clear out the deadwood. I told you this yesterday, Bush signed the Healthy Forests Initiative, or some such thing, I don\u2019t know what the name of it was, which was designed to let people go in there and clear out the deadwood and the kindling that\u2019s at the bottom of these forests and they\u2019ve had 59 lawsuits from environmentalist wackos not allowing that to happen. So you\u2019ve got a tinderbox out there. What do you make of this? Here is Harry Reid trying to politicize this, then denies saying it was about global warming after blaming global warming. No. That took place, those two bites took place at the same press conference within a span, ladies and gentlemen, of six minutes. This is the height of irresponsibility, and it goes on. Here\u2019s Barbara Boxer. She couldn\u2019t help it. This is yesterday\u2019s Senate committee hearing.<\/p>\n

BOXER: Right now we are down 50% in terms of our National Guard equipment because they\u2019re all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment. So we really will need help. I think all of our states are down in terms of equipment.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So we have to politicize now the war in Iraq. We have to blame our inability to do things and put the fires out on the war in Iraq. Then California\u2019s lieutenant governor, John Garamendi, gets in on the act. He was on Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday, who said, ‘Is the federal government doing what it has to do here?\u2019<\/p>\n

GARAMENDI: Well, they\u2019re doing a lot, and we appreciate what they have done thus far. I got some doubt about the value of President Bush coming out here. How many times did he go to New York — to New Orleans — and still made promises, but hasn\u2019t delivered? Okay, President Bush comes out, we\u2019ll be polite, but, frankly, that\u2019s not the solution. How about sending our National Guard back from Iraq so that we have those people available here to help us?<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is what makes you think things are spinning out of control. These are two Californians, Barbara Boxer and John Garamendi, the lieutenant governor, and rather than focus and praise the people who are doing great work out there — and they are civilians, they are volunteer firefighters, they are business owners. The private sector is coming together here, working together with state officials. The feds are late on the scene, but that\u2019s okay. This is a demonstration of how it should be done. And yet in the midst of this, with people in droves losing everything, two Californians, one a senator, one a lieutenant governor, makes it their priority to bash President Bush and the war in Iraq. Now, I maintain that the country is fed up with this kind of action, fed up with the politicizing of these things, and if you\u2019re feeling like everything\u2019s out of control and nothing\u2019s making any sense and everything\u2019s going wrong, this may be one of the reasons. You may not be feeling that way, after today\u2019s show you might, depends. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: If you\u2019re feeling sick, folks, it\u2019s the Democrats making you feel sick. By the way — are you certain about this? One of these fires was arson? Okay. Okay, the cops picked up an arsonist and one of these fires was arson. So you might say, ‘Well, what does global warming have to do with arson?\u2019 Their answer for that is, ‘Well, global warming has dried it out. There\u2019s drought out there and, of course, however the fire starts, why, it\u2019s just going to go crazy!\u2019 The interesting weather aspect of this is that really one of the fuels for this is the Santa Ana winds, and yesterday I remember reading some global warming hack talking about the fact that the period of the Santa Ana winds is extended, like 38 days longer or 78 days longer than it used to be, or whatever it is. I forget the exact number. Local meteorologists in Southern California are saying they were surprised that the Santa Anas had not arrived at the same time they usually do. They were late arriving this year. Now they\u2019re there in full force, but they\u2019re not any more outrageously strong than on average, according to local meteorologists out there. So here we have a United States senator, Barbara Boxer — who is not even back in California trying to help out!<\/p>\n

She\u2019s pontificating from the Senate. What has she ever done to support the National Guard? Here she\u2019s all worried about the National Guard being depleted because it\u2019s back in Iraq. What has she ever done to support the Guard, or the thinning of these forests by the logging companies? They keep the logging companies out of as many wooded areas as they can. You know, the leftists are always complaining that there are not as many military personnel. They\u2019ve spent decking cutting military personnel! California universities won\u2019t even let military recruiters on campus. These people speak with disdain of the US military. We\u2019ve chronicled this. They are invested in the defeat of the US military. They constantly impugn them, and now when they need them (crying), ‘Bush sent them to Iraq! Where are our National Guard troops? Wah-hah-hah,\u2019 and so forth. They complain about burning forests, when Clinton and the environmentalist wackos opposed thinning the forests — and are filing lawsuits now to prevent going in and doing some of the thinning. Duncan Hunter last night, a Republican presidential candidate, was on MSNBC with Dan Abrams, and Abrams said, ‘What do you make of this, Representative Hunter? I mean, the idea that you have Barbara Boxer now and others coming out saying, ‘Look, there\u2019s no question the war in Iraq is straining our abilities to handle nationally disasters like this one.\u2019 What\u2019s your thought?\u2019 <\/p>\n

HUNTER: This is a big stretch, and I can tell you, I\u2019ve been chairman of the Armed Services Committee for the last four years. We\u2019ve got two-and-a-half-million people under arms. We\u2019ve got less than 8% of those people in the war-fighting theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan. You\u2019ve got a 60-mile-an-hour wind hitting tinder-dry sagebrush. You could put the entire US Army in front of it, and you\u2019re not going to stop it, and the proof of that is this. We\u2019ve got thousands of US Marines right now at Camp Pendleton available to fight fires where we can use them here in San Diego County, but you simply don\u2019t throw a wall of bodies up against an incoming wall of flame that\u2019s coming with high winds behind it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Exactly right. So what are the National Guard troops going to do, just stand there and blow in the opposite direction and say, ‘Fire, go away\u2019? What are they going to do? This is such meaningless BS, and it is nothing more than politicizing a disaster — and California officials, the lieutenant governor, Garamendi (who I knew when I lived out there), and Barbara Boxer (who I\u2019ve not met, wherever I\u2019ve lived) are trying to turn this into a political issue, along with Harry Reid, blaming global warming, and then six minutes later, denying he had even said it. Here\u2019s the Early Show this morning. Hannah Storm was talking to David Paulison — who is the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA — and she said, ‘Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer complained of the ability of the state\u2019s National Guard\u2019s been compromised because of too much of their equipment and personnel is in Iraq is that true.\u2019<\/p>\n

PAULISON: I have not seen that at all, quite frankly. I have not seen that at all. I was just at Qualcomm yesterday and last night, actually. Things are under control. There\u2019s plenty of food. There\u2019s plenty of water. There\u2019s lots of security. I have not seen an issue with the Guard. In fact, they are moving lots of National Guards in there on the ground, working with NORTHCOM and others to make sure we have the right people here to do the job.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, Duncan Hunter made the case: all the Marines at Camp Pendleton and his statistics. We got two and a half million people under arms; less than 8% of those people in the war fighting theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats are just lying again. They\u2019re just trying to politicize a really tragic event that is causing all kinds of disruption, and sadness, and devastation of people\u2019s lives. It just makes me sick, folks, and I\u2019m sure that it does some of you. Now, on ABC\u2019s Good Morning America today, Claire Shipman talked to Governor Schwarzenegger. She said, ‘You say everybody\u2019s working together, but you\u2019ve heard that there\u2019s been some complaints from officials, for example, in Orange County who say if we\u2019d only had more resources earlier — more planes, more firefighting resources — we might have been able to head off those fires that are ravaging Orange County right now.\u2019<\/p>\n

SCHWARZENEGGER: Everyone complaining about the planes just wants to complain, because it\u2019s a bunch of nonsense. The fact is that we have all the planes in the world. We have 90 aircraft here, and they can\u2019t fly because of the wind situation.<\/p>\n

SHIPMAN: The point he was making you have to be ready to fly.<\/p>\n

SCHWARZENEGGER: Trust me when I tell you: You\u2019re looking for a mistake and you won\u2019t find it, because it\u2019s all good news — as much as you maybe hate it, but it\u2019s good news.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Sometimes… You know, Arnold\u2019s crossed the line here. He\u2019s gone to the center, but he\u2019s got these conservative instincts–, and the media, apparently, can still stir them, and rouse Arnold from his sleep, because, ‘Trust me when I tell you: You\u2019re looking for a mistake and you won\u2019t find it because it\u2019s all good news — as much as you may hate it, but it\u2019s all good news,\u2019 and that\u2019s exactly right. They\u2019re out there trying to find the Hurricane Katrina-type stories in Southern California, and they can\u2019t, and they can\u2019t make them up like they did during Katrina because there are too many eyewitnesses. Everybody\u2019s involved down there. There\u2019s nowhere the Drive-Bys can go that everybody else can go. People are already aware of where the Drive-Bys want to go so what they\u2019re going to have to do is roust a couple of citizens out there who are willing to tell tales of woe about how the Bush administration didn\u2019t do enough for them — and they\u2019ll find \u2019em. But Schwarzenegger is not biting on it, not getting involved in this and letting them set the agenda, as they did during Hurricane Katrina. On the Today show today, David Paulison was back, the FEMA guy, and Matt Lauer said, ‘I think there\u2019s one real success story in this situation from my personal experience out there yesterday. This reverse 911 calling system seems to really be working.\u2019<\/p>\n

PAULISON: It worked phenomenally well. The city was able to call out over 500,000 people and give them the direction to evacuate. Most everybody listened to that. They got out of harm\u2019s way and that\u2019s the most important thing. (chainsaw sound on tape) You know, people may loose their homes. We can rebuild a home, but get out of harm\u2019s way. You cannot replace your life.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s the great thing. It\u2019s a point I made about one of the big differences between Hurricane Katrina and this. I guess that noise was on the sound bite; is that right? It was a chainsaw? Oh, good! Chopping down trees. Yes. Remember the old timber update we used to do with it? Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah! It might be time to bring that back at some point. But, at any rate, in Hurricane Katrina, they didn\u2019t evacuate the people. They didn\u2019t get them out of there. They didn\u2019t use the school buses, and then they were forced to hole up in the Superdome, which, of course, sprung a leak — four feet of water in there, all kinds of sewage problems — same thing at the Convention Center. But they evacuated people in the danger areas in California. They got them away from danger. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: These Drive-Bys and the Democrats are trying to politicize and look at every disaster through their political bias and lens. Any governor, or mayor, or councilman, or supervisor with any degree of competence knows that states and localities are the best at dealing with this kind of disaster, assuming you have competent leadership at that level, and it\u2019s apparent that we do, in Southern California, with some federal help going in. Their first actions, by the way, were not to call Barbara Boxer. Their first actions were not to call FEMA. Their first actions were to attack the fires. They don\u2019t want to be thought of as victims. When this all started this past weekend, in Malibu there were people with garden hoses stamping out fires in tennis shoes, the tennis shoes were catching fire. By the way, another one of these fires was caused by a downed power line, so we have suspected arson in one of them, a downed power line in another, and Dingy Harry is out there blaming it on global warming and then six minutes later denying that he had blamed it on global warming. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to keep playing those bites. Unbelievable, these people are cracking up out here. If global warming caused these fires, then global warming should put \u2019em out since it\u2019s supposed to also cause flooding, right? The people in both the state government and the public are acting responsibly in fighting this disaster. It is the federal politicians who have nothing to do with this, who are looking to exploit it, liberal federal politicians. Why do we care what Harry Reid has to say about it? Why do we care what Barbara Boxer has to say about it when she\u2019s not involved in any of the rescue efforts? All the media attention that they receive has nothing to do with fighting these fires. All they do is make political pronouncements. They\u2019re not news except to the Drive-By Media, because the media is searching, lurking for political angles that fit their political bias, right along with the Democrats. <\/p>\n

Grab a couple phone calls. Auburn, Kentucky. This is Robert. You\u2019re first up today on the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hello, Rush? <\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I have been listening to you since 1987. I\u2019m a retired Marine. I served 20 years. I retired in 1978. And when I was listening to your monologue, I got myself all heated up and saying, ‘Wait a minute, there\u2019s Marines in Pendleton that were promised to be there,\u2019 and I heard the report yesterday that they were there, they were just waiting for the conditions to be right to fight this fire, but, of course, after listening to you, I see you\u2019re on top of it, you had all those reports. But listening to you and not being able to respond sometimes I get a little uptight.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Why, because you want to add to what I\u2019m saying or — <\/p>\n

CALLER: I just want to say, ‘Hey, look, they\u2019re our people out there that are doing something.\u2019 I think most of the people look to the politician. Our military has served this country well and they\u2019re doing a great job in Iraq but they\u2019re getting blamed for murders and all kind of crazy things.<\/p>\n

RUSH: See, it\u2019s all combined into one. This is why you feel like things are spinning out of control. Everything is going wrong, nothing makes sense. It seems like immorality, lying, and depravity have become the norm in the Drive-By Media, which is people\u2019s primary information source, and it affects their moods. Look at you? You have just made my point. You listen to these guys attack the military for four years, and then a forest fire breaks out or a hurricane, ‘Where\u2019s the military? Where\u2019s the military? We need the military! We don\u2019t have the military because Bush sent the military to Iraq.\u2019 We have plenty of National Guard personnel here. We have thousands of Marines at Camp Pendleton. <\/p>\n

Duncan Hunter is exactly right. What do you do with these people? You just send \u2019em out there to perish in the fire? You just send them out there as a show of force as though the fire is going to be impressed with their presence? Fighting fires is not just a matter of manpower going out there. There\u2019s a science to it. How many forest fires have we had, how many fires like this fueled by the Santa Anas in your lifetime where the Democrats and media tried to make a political issue out of it? I mean, it\u2019s common to take certain things, disasters, and make political issues out of them, I suppose, but this just seems to be more over the top than usual, and they\u2019re having to lie in the process, which is, I guess, common. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go St. Louis. Jim, hello, sir, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega dittos to you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m just wondering where the call for defeat from the fire is? It\u2019s already too strong, and they\u2019re actually calling for a surge for the fire, but, you know, where\u2019s the call for defeat in all this?<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, that is somewhat interesting. Here you have pictures all over the country of utter destruction and devastation, and no way to stop it. We had pictures coming out of Iraq of the same type. We had explosions, dead bodies, burning and smoldering cars, and the Democrats\u2019 common reaction, ‘Oh, we gotta cut-and-run, our troops can\u2019t win, this is horrible,\u2019 wave the white flag and so forth. These pictures, the same people, say, ‘What are you going to do to stop this?\u2019 they\u2019re asking people. It\u2019s an excellent point, but you have to understand, I guess this is the disturbing thing, folks. As far as Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, and some apparently in the media, and John Garamendi, the lieutenant governor, apparently this devastating series of fires presents a greater political opportunity that has them all excited than actually dealing with this, putting these fires out. I look at those fires and I look at these homes going up, and I put myself in the shoes of those people, and I don\u2019t think politics at all. <\/p>\n

My thoughts are pure, 100% feelings, emotion, what must it be like, even though you have insurance, it\u2019s still dicey. How long is it going to take, who you going to have to fight with the insurance company to get your money, and get your house rebuilt, what you do, where you go, all these things. The last thing I think about is politics. It would never occur to me to find a way to blame Democrats for this or one of the presidential candidates, like Hillary Clinton. But boy, when they start in and do that, you have to defend. That\u2019s when you start talking about the environmentalist wackos. You want to start applying blame, and this is what the Democrats love to do, they see a disaster, rather than dealing with it, putting the fires out, putting lives back together, all they want to do is find blame through their political lens, and it\u2019s just depressing to a lot of people. It\u2019s not depressing to me. Fires me up and makes me mad. Does not depress me. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s question for you to ponder, ladies and gentlemen. Every winter in California, in certain parts of the state, we get heavy rains and mudslides, do we not? And some of those mudslides carry with them houses down the hills. We all remember this. It will happen again this year, and we will be told that this is due to ‘global warming,\u2019 and we will be told that it\u2019s due to the fires, that the fires have taken away some of the natural forestation that would stand in the way of the floods and the mud, soak up some of the rain, but now it\u2019s not there. They\u2019re going to be predicting disaster, all based on ‘global warming.\u2019 Now, when they blame it on global warming — by the way, how much pollution do you think these forest fires are creating? It is so much more. There\u2019s more pollution, more carbon, more gunk belching into the atmosphere than the combined pollution of General Motors or ExxonMobil. It is stunning, and Mother Nature is doing this. <\/p>\n

You know, Mother Nature creates more pollution than man ever could — and then Mother Nature reverses it, too. Harry Reid wants you to think that you did this, that this is your fault. Look, folks, when these people blame ‘global warming,\u2019 don\u2019t forget what they\u2019re blaming. They\u2019re blaming prosperity. They\u2019re blaming advanced lifestyles. They\u2019re blaming people for the way they live, because the ‘fix\u2019 to global warming is to roll back lifestyles to a more primitive level. That\u2019s what this is all about, and turning over more power to the government to tell you how you can and can\u2019t live. So when they start talking about this is because of global warming, you gotta hear \u2019em and what they\u2019re saying. What they\u2019re saying is, ‘It\u2019s your fault. You people in California, your lifestyles are too this and too that.\u2019 Here is Jason in Fletcher, Ohio. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi, sir.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I still (unintelligible) that I hear on CNN Paul McHale saying they have 17,000 National Guardsmen, 550 Marines, and I understand — I agree agree with your point — about not sending all these people in. But what I heard them say is they have not been ‘asked\u2019 to go in. Now, I — I\u2019m wondering, why does the government need to be ‘asked\u2019 to help in a catastrophe like this?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Uh, I\u2019m really having trouble understanding you because, I guess, a combination of your phone and my implant, and I don\u2019t know who Paul McHale is. Oh, the assistant secretary of defense, Paul McHale. (It\u2019s spelled like Mikhail Gorbachev here on my transcriber machine. Russians infiltrated the defense department!) We haven\u2019t been asked…? Because the states have to ask the feds. The feds just can\u2019t send willy-nilly troops wherever they want them to go.<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s the government\u2019s job to protect us? So why is it they have to be asked on something this large —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, please.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — you know, this magnitude?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Please. It\u2019s your job to protect yourself in the first place. If a fire comes to your house, are you going to sit there and burn to death waiting on the government to show up or get the hell out? Come on! Come on. What? What? Hello? Testing, one, two, three.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah. Go ahead.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Why does it have to be asked? I understand, you know, they can\u2019t send all these people —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Have you ever heard of the Constitution? (tapping fingers) One…two…three…four…five… Damn it! I didn\u2019t get to ten. Have you ever heard of the Constitution? If you let the feds send the military anywhere for anything, they can come get your gun, if they want to, if you have one. I… I… (tapping fingers) ‘Their job is to protect us.\u2019 They\u2019re doing that in Iraq and the guy probably wants us out of there. <\/p>\n

RUSH: Vinny in Manhattan. Save me here, Vinny! I\u2019m on the verge of a nuclear explosion here at the EIB Southern Command.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughter) You know, FDNY dittos, Great One, first off. I expect, and I even understand the type of dishonest behavior and demagoguery from the likes of Boxer and Reid, but just who the hell is this nobody — this insignificant little man — this lieutenant governor from California? I am outraged that he could say such as he said about the president and what he expects the president to do.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait, wait. Let\u2019s be precise. You\u2019re not outraged that he could, because he can say what he wants. You\u2019re outraged that he would.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes. Well, I\u2019m outraged that he did! How\u2019s that?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, better.<\/p>\n

CALLER: He did it. The world has heard it. But you know what? This is this guy\u2019s grab. Nobody\u2019s ever heard of this guy. I certainly haven\u2019t. Maybe you\u2019re the only one on this radio program who have heard of this guy, okay, and yet we do feel like we\u2019re being ground into the dust by an oppressive liberal media and the party they love and support, the Democratic Party. But at the end of the day, Rush, at the end of the day, it is we on the side of right. Rugged individualism and conservative ideas are going to win the day. To hell with these people. Period.<\/p>\n

RUSH: They are winning the day. They are winning the day. It\u2019s one of the reasons that there is such desperation on the part of the libs, they are jumping at everything. They know that they can\u2019t get anything done of any consequence in Congress, the House or the Senate on Iraq, all of these things, and they\u2019re just desperate. By the way, I\u2019m not going to have this whole show sidetracked by this today because there are things going on. Dingy Harry and Dick Durbin got this little plan in the Senate today called the DREAM Act, which is amnesty all over again, and we\u2019re going to talk about this today before the program ends. But let\u2019s go back, grab audio sound bite number 11, this is Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, California. He was on Hardball last night with Chris Matthews and this is the guy and his comment that had Vinny so outraged.<\/p>\n

GARAMENDI: Well, they\u2019re doing a lot, and we appreciate what they have done thus for. I\u2019ve got some doubt about the, uh, value of President Bush coming out here. How many times did he go to New York — uh, to New Orleans — and still made promises, but hasn\u2019t delivered? Okay, President Bush comes out. We\u2019ll be polite, but, frankly, uh, that\u2019s not the solution. How about sending our National Guard back from Iraq, so that we have those people available here to help us?<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s just irresponsible. It is just irresponsible. He knows it\u2019s irresponsible. That\u2019s who these people have become. They tried it with Hurricane Katrina. They\u2019ll try it with any disaster — a Midwestern flood, mudslide, whatever. Get used to it, folks, if you\u2019re not already. Vinny, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. Listen to Katie Couric. Here Katie Couric of CBS Evening News — we have a little montage here of her report — gives credit to an inanimate object, Qualcomm Stadium, for doing a good job.<\/p>\n

COURIC: Qualcomm Stadium is now home to as many as 15,000 evacuees. One woman I spoke to described it as ‘Woodstock without the drugs.\u2019 From afar it looks like a massive tailgate party — and, inside, the mood is much the same. During Katrina, New Orleans attempt to shelter people in a sports stadium went terribly wrong. The Superdome turned into a small city of violence, filth, and chaos. But even with an estimated 10,000 people sleeping in Qualcomm, the stadium is getting high marks.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The stadium is getting high marks? How about the people that are administering what\u2019s happening at the stadium? For crying out loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: And I\u2019m going to tell you exactly why you feel that way, because I bet you a lot of people are just fit to be tied. Snerdley just said to me, I saw him staring intently right into my eyes, I wasn\u2019t saying anything. I said, ‘What are you staring at?\u2019 He said, ‘It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDisgusting Democrats, Drive-Bys Politicize the California Wildfires - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/10\/24\/disgusting_democrats_drive_bys_politicize_the_california_wildfires2\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Disgusting Democrats, Drive-Bys Politicize the California Wildfires - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: And I\u2019m going to tell you exactly why you feel that way, because I bet you a lot of people are just fit to be tied. 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