{"id":28107,"date":"2008-01-11T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T04:25:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:25:09","slug":"it_s_time_to_engage_senator_mccain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/01\/11\/it_s_time_to_engage_senator_mccain\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Engage Senator McCain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Now, I want to call your attention to a piece written by, of course, my good friend Mark Levin. He\u2019s posted this at National Review Online, and it\u2019s ‘The Real McCain Record,\u2019 and he starts by saying this is ‘a reason some of John McCain\u2019s conservative supporters avoid discussing his record.\u2019 Now, we\u2019re talking about supporters here. The reason that I want to share this with you that ‘Flee\u2019 wrote is nobody laid a glove on McCain last night, and he\u2019s the quasi-, so-called Republican front-runner. If these other people, whoever want this nomination, ever hope to get it, they\u2019re going to have to go after McCain at some point. But the ‘reason that some of McCain\u2019s conservative supporters avoid discussing his record is that they want to talk about his personal story, they want to talk about his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.\u2019 This is a liberal trick. This is a Clintonista trick. <\/p>\n

You tell the truth about liberal Democrats, they say, ‘That\u2019s so mean! That\u2019s attack politics! That\u2019s the politics of personal destruction!\u2019 It\u2019s the same dynamic with Huckabee. If you tell the truth about Huckabee, ‘It\u2019s the politics of personal destruction. These are attack ads,\u2019 and besides, these guys are all adults. They\u2019ve been in politics all their lives. Attack ads are part of the business. Acting like it\u2019s offensive and hurtful, is just a joke. Levin writes here, ‘The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider: McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo. McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history. McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history. McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients\u2019 bill of rights. McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety.\u2019<\/p>\n

McCain-Feingold alone. This isn\u2019t Republican, to limit free speech. This is the Incumbent Protection Act, and, of course, the amnesty program, McCain loves to say (McCain impression), ‘It\u2019s not amnesty! You hear me, sailor? It\u2019s not…amnesty!\u2019 But it\u2019s amnesty. It was amnesty, and that\u2019s why it went down to a scorching, blazing defeat. It\u2019s not amnesty? McCain\u2019s ‘stated opposition to Bush\u2019s tax cuts in 2001-2003, largely based on…class warfare rhetoric.\u2019 He said (McCain impression), ‘We can\u2019t do this, it\u2019s tax cuts for the rich. I\u2019m not going to do tax cuts for the rich!\u2019 ‘The public record is full of statements like these. Today he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts,\u2019 and they didn\u2019t want any spending cuts in there so he wouldn\u2019t support tax cuts. But people have forgotten, in 2001 McCain was still steaming over 2000 and the South Carolina primary after the contretemps regarding Bob Jones University, the religion and so forth. He had it in for Bush. In 2003, his anger hadn\u2019t dwindled much. So he was opposing Bush\u2019s tax cut, using class warfare rhetoric. ‘As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science &amp; Transportation…\u2019 I know people are asking, ‘Rush, why are you doing this?\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you why I\u2019m doing it — because no Republican in the debate last night did it. Somebody has to do it! ‘As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.\u2019 How many of us can forget the Gang of 14 debacle? Remember that, ladies and gentlemen? The Gang of 14 ‘prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.\u2019 You never had to have 60 votes to get a judicial nominee approved. The Democrats started filibustering, you needed 60 votes. We were going to pull the trigger on the nuclear option to get rid of this once and for all and McCain rides in with Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty and others, to form the Gang of 14 — which, by the way, has expired, ladies and gentlemen. The Gang of 14 deal has expired now. <\/p>\n

‘His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain\u2019s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petraeus\u2019s strategy,\u2019 but I haven\u2019t seen any ‘evidence to support\u2019 that. But McCain\u2019s supporters saying Bush wouldn\u2019t have done it if it weren\u2019t for the influence of McCain. McCain had it right? I haven\u2019t seen the evidence. <\/p>\n

‘Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9\/11. How does McCain fare in that regard? McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists). McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of [Club Gitmo] and the introduction of Al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.\u2019 There will be other debates, and there\u2019s a gold mine of things to hit Senator McCain on. His record. But there is a reluctance to do so. It\u2019s the POW\/MIA story, the hero status and so forth. But if these guys have a prayer of knocking him off the lead they\u2019re going to have to get into this stuff.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I just want to say one more thing about this McCain business. In explaining why there might be trepidation on the part of Republicans, particularly in South Carolina to engage him, and that\u2019s because of South Carolina 2000. It was brutal. This program intimately involved in that, and South Carolina began the beginning of the end of the McCain campaign for president that year. Now, we were not involved spreading any rumors about McCain. Other candidate campaigns did that, we didn\u2019t do that but it was just spelled out, ‘Hey, this guy is not conservative, look at what he\u2019s saying here about various aspects of the Christian Coalition,\u2019 and this sort of thing. It was bloody, Bush emerged, and that was the end of it. And as I say, you recall now, no Drive-Bys are saying McCain has to win South Carolina, it\u2019s over. Or he has to win Michigan or it\u2019s over. Not saying that about Huckabee, either. <\/p>\n

All the other viable candidates, top-tier candidates, ‘If they lose this, they\u2019re gone. If they don\u2019t get there, they\u2019re done.\u2019 They\u2019re trying to influence your thinking about this. But I think one of the reasons why the Republicans are reluctant to go after McCain is South Carolina, because there probably is a fear among some of their strategerists that McCain will pop up or his campaign will pop up and say, (doing McCain impression) ‘It\u2019s South Carolina, it\u2019s all over again. It\u2019s where they got me last time, and they think they can do it again, which they can\u2019t, they can\u2019t, come on, come get me!\u2019 They\u2019re worried about history repeating itself. But they don\u2019t have much time here, folks. It\u2019s a political campaign, you know? It\u2019s like Huckabee said, ‘If you can\u2019t stand the sight of your own blood, don\u2019t get into it.\u2019 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Now, I want to call your attention to a piece written by, of course, my good friend Mark Levin. He\u2019s posted this at National Review Online, and it\u2019s ‘The Real McCain Record,\u2019 and he starts by saying this is ‘a reason some of John McCain\u2019s conservative supporters avoid discussing his record.\u2019 Now, we\u2019re talking […]<\/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":"\nIt's Time to Engage Senator McCain - 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\/2008\/01\/11\/it_s_time_to_engage_senator_mccain\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"It's Time to Engage Senator McCain - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Now, I want to call your attention to a piece written by, of course, my good friend Mark Levin. 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