RUSH: Sam in Chicago, you’re next. Great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Good!
CALLER: Listen, I’m hearing from you right now a defense of the possible indictees in the Valerie Plame incident, and I’m also hearing across the board from conservatives on how bad it is that what’s happening to Mr. DeLay, and I just see conservatives — especially yourself, Rush — as having a double standard. I love listening to you, and for years and years I’ve listened to you how bad Bill Clinton was for lying under oath about a sexual incident, and right now, you… What you’re doing is you’re stepping up to the plate, and you’re starting to prepare your defensive arguments to a situation where an undercover, or at least a covert — CIA agent [sic] —
RUSH: Hold it. Sam, hold it just a second, now. She was not covert.
CALLER: Well, Rush, I don’t believe —
RUSH: She was not covert! Sam! It’s not arguable. It’s not my opinion. It’s not the way you feel that’s important? She was not a covert agent.
CALLER: I’m not going to argue with you.
RUSH: If there’s a big, lying skunk in this equation, it is her husband, Joseph Wilson. Joseph Wilson has told so many whoppers… I hope he’s been subpoenaed. I hope he’s testified to this grand jury. I hope she has been. We haven’t heard anything about that. But I don’t know what you’re hearing. What liars am I defending here?
CALLER: Rush, what you’re talking about right now is the means justify the end. Anything to in any way destroy the positions of her husband were acceptable, and I think — and I don’t know, I think — that is exactly what was going on here —
RUSH: Sam…
CALLER: — and I don’t think that that’s the way a real conservative, a law-and-order person should be talking about.
RUSH: I don’t think you know anything about a “real” conservative if you think that a real conservative would be doing what you say. If a real conservative would be doing what you say, then you’d be a conservative, you wouldn’t be calling yourself a liberal. Look at your technique. Try to define conservatism for me by saying I’m not it. You set up standards that don’t define conservatism and then say, “A real conservative would do this.” You think this is all about trying to destroy Joe Wilson? Let me tell you what this is all about, Sam. This is about Joe Wilson trying to take down a presidency. This is about your hero, Joe Wilson, trying to destroy the Bush presidency — and that’s why you like him and that’s why you think he’s good. Joe Wilson is not worth all of this that people are putting on the line for him. Joe Wilson has engaged in a plan here with his wife to be sent over to Niger to undermine this war on terror and the war on Iraq. It’s ironic that Joe Wilson comes back after his visit to Niger, reports to the CIA — not written, but verbally. He never submitted a written report. Cheney never saw a written report. There wasn’t a written report (story). He came back and gave his verbal report, and it pretty much confirmed what some in the CIA thought anyway that there was something going on with Niger and Iraq.
Now you want to pass this off as this administration trying to destroy Joe Wilson because that’s what you people have been led to believe, but you are so misinformed on this you don’t even know what this is about! You don’t even know what this grand jury has come up with. You don’t know that anybody has lied. You don’t know that anybody’s going to be charged with perjury but you’re living under the illusion that it’s all going to map out the way you want it to, and you don’t know this and you’re taking a flier on this. If I were you I’d pull back and wait ’til you know something before you start calling and launching into these allegations of what I’m doing. I’m not being inconsistent at all. I have said constantly, “I don’t know who did what in this case.” I don’t think half the American people outside the Beltway care about this case, and the only way they’re going to care about this case is if there are indictments. If there are no indictments in this case, I’ll tell you who’s going to have hell to pay and that’s the mainstream press because the mainstream press will once again, if there are no indictments, do the same thing that they did in Katrina in the aftermath: Report a bunch of BS and bull hockey. Now, just sit back out there, Sam and sit tight, and rather than try to be critical of me and try to destroy my credibility or whatever with this call to the program, if you’re going to call back get your facts straight on this. Find out who Joe Wilson is. Find out that Valerie Plame was not covert, find out this was not about trying to destroy her career. It was not about trying to destroy his career because, frankly, he doesn’t have a career. What is Joe Wilson’s career? Can somebody tell me? “Well, he’s a career diplomat.” Well, is he a diplomat now? Joe Wilson’s done a good enough job of damaging himself that the Bush administration doesn’t need to do that.
You know the big mistake the Bush administration made in all this, if you want to know the big mistake they made Saddam? The big mistake that they made is even wasting time talking to the New York Times and the Washington Post. They don’t need to talk to the Washington Post and the New York Times to get their story out. All they have to do is go to the American people. All Bush has to do is call a press conference, national press conference, national speech in the Oval Office, get the news straight to the American people. It’s a total waste of time trying to bring the New York Times, the Washington Post in to the president’s side. They’re not interested in helping the president. It’s a waste of time trying to spin them. It’s a waste of time thinking that you’ve gotta get the New York Times and Washington Post on board before you can get anything done in this country. As a conservative it frosts me that there are still Republicans that think that they can’t get anything done on their agenda or policy-wise unless they get the New York Times or Washington Post on board. Both of those papers are becoming less and less and less influential nationwide. Yeah, they may still matter inside the Beltway and they may still matter with members of Congress, but it’s not the way we need to get things done. We do it by going to the American people, getting the American people behind us. That’s the mistake they made here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Sam in Chicago, I know you’re still out there. I’ll give even some more detail on this. Bill Clinton was bad. Nobody is being two-faced on hypocritical about this. He did lie under oath. He was held in contempt of court. He surrendered his law license for five years, Sam. He resigned from the US Supreme Court bar. Now, for all your wishful thinking, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby have been attacked in the media with leak after leak and speculation after speculation, and they haven’t yet been charged with anything, Sam. And even if they are charged, as in the Tom DeLay case, I’ll draw my own conclusions about what those charges say. I’m not going to let you write my script for me. I’m not going to let you guys call here and set the table for me. It would be easy to do what the mainstream press is doing. Throw the Constitution to the wind, assert guilt, essentially. Assume resignations! Assume it’s Watergate! Assume that everybody is going to be taken to the firing squad.
As for Joe Wilson: Joe Wilson sought to interpose himself into the debate over Iraq. He and his wife conspired to get him sent to Niger. He was not sent by the vice president. He was not sent by the Bush administration, and they were taking no effort to get even with him because he double-crossed them. He chose to write an op-ed in the New York Times in which he lied repeatedly. It has been demonstrated over and over, he’s a partisan hack. He worked behind the scenes with John Kerry. He has worked behind the scenes with Chuck Schumer — and he Chuck Schumer go way back and are part of this alliance that’s aimed at embarrassing Bush and keeping him on the defensive.
The purpose for Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger was to destroy the Bush presidency by undercutting the war effort. That’s why Joe Wilson wanted to go to Niger and that’s why his wife wanted to send him to Niger. That’s what this is all about — and we’re supposed to now pretend that this guy has some kind of victim status now, put upon by a vicious White House? This guy deserves to be disdained. He’s a despicable character — and we’re going to be watching, Sam, very carefully here to see what Fitzgerald does, the special prosecutor here. If he conducts himself in a way that we find over the top, we’ll say so. You can count on it. Now, you liberals, you viciously attacked Ken Starr. You went out there and tried to portray him as a sexual pervert, a voyeur. You did everything you could to destroy Ken Starr’s reputation and his life, and now you demand that we accept whatever comes down the pike that we must be consistent. Well, it depends on what it is. If it stinks, I will say so. Pure and simple.
END TRANSCRIPT