The next thing is, “He doesn’t like consultation.” Same thing: He hasn’t talked to me, he hasn’t brought me up there to get my expert input as the Dean of the Senate. I’ve seen more than he’s seen. I’ve burned crosses. I wore white sheets. I’ve done things this guy hasn’t even thought about doing and he hasn’t asked my opinion about how to deal with anything. He’s a man governed by his instincts. This is the real code lingo because I’ll tell you something, folks: Instincts are valuable. Do you know what your instincts it are? May I get deeply personal with you for a moment? You know what your instincts are? Instincts are simply your inner voice telling you what’s right and wrong, and most people don’t have the courage to listen to their instincts because doing what’s right is harder than doing what’s wrong. And it’s easier to not make a decision to do what’s right and go out and ask somebody what they think you should do, and then go get a consensus. It takes the heat off you. You make a decision based on your instincts, and you’re out there alone. If you don’t, if you don’t have the courage to do that, then you’re going to go ask people for their opinion and your opinion is going to get watered down — and what good is it? You’re certainly no good as a leader. I mean, instincts are key. If you find people who follow their instincts, you’re going to find successful people.
Well, I didn’t want to mention myself, H.R., (talking to staff) but I mean I will since you’ve thrown it out there. I have done nothing my whole career but follow my instincts, and I think I’ve turned out okay. I mean, I have some room to go here, but I’ve just followed my instincts, followed my desires, passions, beliefs and so forth. But there’s another element to this instincts business, I think, I’m pretty sure exists. And I think when certain people — and I don’t know if Sheets Byrd is one of them — but when certain people say, “We shouldn’t have a national leader who’s governed by his instincts” — I don’t know if Byrd means this specifically — but a lot of people actually intend to say, “I don’t like a guy who’s trusting his faith in God to make these decisions,” and if you really want to get down to a source of real anger and acrimony toward Bush, it is his faith and his public display and his public acknowledgment of it. You know, Bush is like Reagan in the sense that Bush believes there’s general plan, that it’s going to turn out well. You’ve got rocky moments in the midst of the plan being executed, but he believes that the best will happen if he sticks to his instincts and his objectives and his core values — and this is what frightens people, too, this invocation of God. Makes ’em nervous.
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RUSH: I realize that many of you may be out there in mock shrieking or otherwise very exercised over my claim that what many Democrats really fear when they talk about Bush following his instincts is his faith in God. I happen to know this from firsthand experience. I know it petrifies them because God is the final authority for people who accept God. And once there’s a final authority, then there’s black and white. A lot of people just don’t like black and white.
So they begin to say, “Well, that’s your God, and then there’s my God and then there’s your interpretation of this, interpretation of that. Bush doesn’t get his God is God of Christianity, Judeo-Christian ethic.” I’m just telling you, it very much frightens people, and I think this is one of the hidden reasons why there’s so much venom directed at Bush. You know, any time there has been any discussion of religious people serving in government, we hear others in a cacophonous shriek of outrage. “Oh, got to have separation of church and state. Can’t have people imposing their religious views on the country,” and that really gets to them. Somebody like Bush who claims faith in God and claims that it’s his guiding light in life feel that he’s just imposing a religious view on everybody else. That, of course, just can’t do that. That’s too restrictive. It’s too personal. It’s none of his business and so forth, and so you’ve got all these elements. But for those of you that may think I’m just fabricating this out of whole cloth and making this up, I want to go back to the February 29th debate in New York City. John Kerry talking about God.
KERRY: God will — look, I think — I believe in God, but I don’t believe the way President Bush does in — in — in invoking it all the time in that way. I think that — we pray that God is on our side and we pray hard, and God has been on our side through most of our existence.
RUSH: This is somebody who didn’t want to talk about it, somebody who had to appease his base: God is fallible. God is not always with us, meaning we’re not always right. We’re not always best. We’re not the great country. That we are not exceptional and this is one of the things that bothers me most about people in this country who can’t grasp the simple reasons for our greatness — and it is not because we’re special people. It is not because we’re better than anybody else. Of course, the people that have this problem think that’s what it means. They think we’re all equal. We should strive to be nobody better than anybody else. Nobody worse than anybody else, but, of course, there’s no such thing as equality. No two things are equal. It’s a physical — I mean in the science sense — a physical premise it’s not possible. Certainly when it comes to people. No two people are equal. You try to extend equal opportunities to people, but beyond that, when it comes to outcomes, there is no equality. You cannot guarantee equal outcomes, and the way it’s been tried — communism, socialism, you name it — has always failed because it doesn’t take into account individual ambition, talent, makeup, individuality. Period.
So here’s Kerry with this little tiptoe through the tulips answer here. He’s got to make sure that he doesn’t stress that there is an American exceptionalism. You know why we’ve been around less than 250 years and we run rings around any other country that has ever existed? Again, not because of our skin color, religious makeup, any of that. It is because our Founding Fathers saw fit to enshrine in our documents that structure us the source of our freedom. Our creation. We are all “created with certain inalienable rights,” the rights to “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness,” and that structures the way we exist. We’re not a tyranny. We are not a dictatorship. We are not led by people that don’t believe that people can be their best. We have people among us that think that and they vie for power, but they never keep it if they do get it for a while, because it’s contrary to the way we were set up. This is simply the best place on earth for human potential to be realized, and it has been throughout the years.
This is why I got so upset last week when Kofi Annan starts bellyaching about the fact that we needed to send him another billion dollars for AIDS. We have spent more on AIDS research than the rest of the world’s nations combined. We feed the world. We clothe the world. We give the world medicine — and it seemingly always comes up short. It’s never is appreciated. We still get ripped, and that’s primarily because of jealousy and envy, and a number of other things as well. This is the American exceptionalism — e-x-c-e-p-t — that I talk about, and it’s simply the truth. We are exceptional because we have the freedom to be. Any other people on the face of the earth, given our circumstances and our history, could probably do the same thing because it’s the human being that matters.
You know, one of the things that consistently bothers me, and has for the length of time I’ve been hosting this program, is this whole discussion of global warming. Now, stick with me on this. I’ve been through this, but there’s a new development out there. We touched on it a little bit last week, and there’s even more news about it today. We have people who believe in — to me — a very conflicting view that they have. On the one hand, we are awesomely powerful people. Why, just by virtue of our inventions we can destroy the ecosystem, air conditioners, automobiles, jet planes, who knows, that can destroy the ecosystem. We couldn’t create if we wanted to. We couldn’t create this miracle if we had the best minds pooled into one brain, we can’t do it — and yet using the tools we were given as part of creation, we can destroy it? Unh-uh. I don’t buy it. Even nuclear weapons wouldn’t destroy it. It would just redefine it. Might destroy us. But it wouldn’t destroy this — and life would go on, and it would metamorphosis and it would come up in different forms, but it would not be destroyed. Not suggesting we annihilate anybody. I’m just trying to make a point here.
On the other hand, after they say that, they proclaim us — and, by the way, we’re so powerful we can’t cut down trees, we might be destroying the cure for AIDS in there, but the tree can’t tell us it’s there. We have to find it. Yet we’re incompetent at the same time. We’re incapable; we’re incompetent; we’re just a bunch of boobs; we don’t know what’s best for us, but we can destroy the environment. So we’ve had this global warming argument, going on since 1975. If you go back and look at a Newsweek cover in 1975, there was a panic story on global cooling. We were heading into an ice age in ’75. Then somebody got hold of the idea that politically that wouldn’t make any sense. “If we say there’s global warming and blame humanity for it, who do we actually blame? Who’s doing all this inventing? Who’s doing all this technological advancement? It’s the United States.” You can’t say, given their theory that anyplace in Africa or central or South America is destroying the environment. They don’t have enough air conditioners. They don’t have enough cars. They don’t have enough factories. No. So what is it? It’s an attack on us. It’s an attack on our exceptionalism. It’s an attack on our abundance, an attack on our prosperity, an attack on our freedom. You look at the Kyoto protocol, it targets us. We’ve got to back down, we are blamed for all this.
Last week and into the news today comes the news that the sun is hotter and has been hotter than in recent measurements the last 60 years. And guess what? Some people are begrudgingly now, begrudgingly admitting that the sun may actually have more of an impact (story) on temperatures than our cars, and our factories and smokestacks — can you believeit? It might, it’s not proven. We’ve got to investigate, but it is possible the sun could be a factor. (Gasping.) No! Why, that’s as stunning as the fact that somebody just figured out that Iran is involved in terrorism! Man, what are we learning today, folks. You ought to feel really happy. Our information quotient is skyrocketing, the things we’re learning — like the sun! Wouldn’t it be funny if all of this so-called global warming which is a minute increase in overall world temperature anyway, is in fact caused by a hyperactive sun? (Gasping.) What are we going to do? Oh, no! We can’t stop it. We don’t have enough fire trucks to send up there to put it out.
Well, no, don’t give me this, Mr. Snerdley. (talking to program observer) You know, you can start playing provocateur all you want, Mr. Snerdley, the official program observer. Yes, but Rush, you’re forgetting something: “Why is the sun hotter?” Oh, really? The sun’s hotter because of man. Predominantly American man. The sun is hotter because — really? Is that the length they’re going to have to go to? I just say this, folks. I bring all this up because it offends me to sit here and listen to an attack on the greatness of this country, an unceasing attack. It has been going on for as long as I’ve been paying attention. The attack specifically aimed at what it is that sets us apart, what it is that makes us great, and what it is that allows us to share our bounty with the rest of the world is under assault and it takes many forms and global warming and the blame affixed to us is just but one of those techniques. It boggles the mind. So don’t rule out, to close the loop here, just don’t rule out when you hear Robert Byrd and others distrust Bush’s instincts. Thank God. They’re made uncomfortable and nervous, and here, grab 25 again. Play John Kerry again from the debate, February 29th in 2004 as he really wanders here in vain search of a cogent thought to explain his view of God.
KERRY: God will — look, I think — I believe in God, but I don’t believe the way President Bush does in — in invoking it all the time in that way. I think it is — we pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard, and God has been on our side through most of our existence.
RUSH: Most of our existence. Now, he has to say that because some people don’t like this and he would step in it. He has to bring Bush into this. “I believe in God. I just don’t believe in the way President Bush does.” Do you believe in the way the pope does? You’re Catholic. Do you believe in God the way the pope does? Do you believe in God the way your priest does? I mean, why single out Bush? Tell us what your belief in God is, not by defining somebody else’s that you disagreed with. But he can’t do that, because he runs the risk of offending people.
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