RUSH: Let’s talk a little bit about the Democrats for a moment here. I know that some of you, this dispirits. This just depresses you. Ah, it just takes the wind out of your sails, and you go back to ’72 and Watergate. No matter what was going on the Republicans lost because nobody was going to vote for a Republican after Watergate because so horrible and so forth. How can we escape that this time? Well, you’re talking to Mr. Optimism here, and I still fall back on the notion here that the Democrats don’t offer anything that’s relevant so the American people today. If you are a typical, mainstream Democrat you still see this country as in the post-Great Depression era. You still see this country as a bunch of soup lines. Yeah, Hurricane Katrina! As I told the people at my stellar Broadway show the other night, Hurricane Katrina brought back to life the Great Depression for them. Iraq brings back Vietnam. This brings back the CIA business, brings back Watergate. But where are the American people? The American people, for the longest time — if you look at the number of people who are invested in the stock market, it’s called “the ownership society”? The American people don’t look at their country that way. Now, if the Democrats — and, folks, we also don’t know the endgame of any of this. I just want to address some of you who are feeling pessimistic about it, because I know you have to be out there — and it’s possible to win elections if your opponents get so demoralized they don’t show up and vote, and if the Republicans or conservatives get so demoralized after all this, ‘To heck with it; I don’t want to pay any attention to this stuff anymore! All I do is get disappointed,” and, yeah, they could win.
But if I’m right about the conservative base, all this stuff is going to do nothing more than energize them. Tom DeLay, this phony indictment, this investigation of where it’s going, the mainstream press, the New York Times, all of them are just being so eager for Bush’s downfall. You know, it’s easy to make comparisons to Nixon, but Bush is a far more loved figure than Nixon was even in the Republican Party — and I’m telling you, of the number of Americans who vote, the percentage of them that hold the same view of this country as the Democrats do is a minority. Most people in this country don’t look at life in America as the Great Depression today; they don’t look at it needing the old New Deal coalitions of expanding government programs to protect us and to keep us safe. In fact, a growing number of people are concerned about how big the government is getting, and that’s one of the reasons that there’s so much angst at a Republican president now — and then you add to it this business on the war. I keep trying to tell people, and it doesn’t… It’s easy to forget this because there are other things that are more easily at the forefront of one’s mind like the CIA business and Tom DeLay, but, “Two dozen anti-war protesters camped outside the Los Angeles mansion of…” What was the date of this? Is this old news? This Newsday story, is that from today? Well, there’s no date on this but I thought I had this story last week.
Anyway, it’s still good. “Two dozen anti-war protesters camped outside the Los Angeles mansion of Friends producer Marta Kaufman on October the 8th hoping to catch Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she…” Yeah, this is an old story, but there were 30 protesters out there protesting Hillary Clinton for her stand on the war, and you’ve got Cindy Sheehan ginning herself back up. The Democratic Party base, if this CIA investigation… Let’s put it this way: If this CIA investigation doesn’t get us out of Iraq, then they’re still going to demand the Democrats and their candidate do it, and for all this talk about what’s happening with conservatives and Republicans do not make the mistake of assuming that the Democrats are unified. They are unified behind their hatred of Bush, and they’re unified, but that’s always been the case, and look where that’s gotten them! Which is my point. But when it comes to policy, I mean, they’ve got some huge problems, particularly when you start running a national campaign — and I will tell you this: I don’t care what happens in this investigation. This is 2005, and if the 2008 presidential race is about this, people are going to have been tired of it and want to move on and don’t want to relive this kind of stuff, and if they continue looking in the past, if they condition looking backward to find a way to go forward, they’re going to have more trouble than they can possibly imagine, folks. So don’t through in the towel on any of this stuff. This is by no means an indicator of where we’re headed in the future. It’s easy to fall prey to the press momentum on these indictments; it’s easy to fall prey to all of the rest of it that follows from that. I’m telling you don’t do that because we see how quickly things change and how fast reversals seem to take place, and it’s just too premature to start going, “Ah, hell, I’m out of this. I’ve had it.”
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RUSH: Susan in Fredericksburg, Virginia, welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, on the subject of the war I just want to say I’m the wife of a United States Marine and everyone kind of forgets that there’s still a war that’s going on.
RUSH: No, we haven’t. No, we haven’t! In fact the media is out there eagerly counting the 2,000 deaths, Susan. Nobody’s forgotten at this.
CALLER: Well, at the risk of sounding redundant, my husband is so proud to serve under President Bush, and I can’t think of one of our friends or his colleagues that is not. So I just had to say that.
RUSH: I appreciate it. I understand. But don’t think people have forgotten about Iraq. That’s what the CIA business is aaall about.
CALLER: What I don’t understand — and I really do not understand this but I guess I do. Sandy Berger was at the National Archives, and he was caught red-handed with classified documents that would directly relate to terror threats in the United States.
RUSH: Yeah, but he “forgot” that he did that.
CALLER: Well, let’s see —
RUSH: He forgot he stuffed those documents into his socks.
CALLER: Well, let’s see. The first thing he said that it was a lie, which was an honest mistake, then they caught him was under his sock, in his jacket. What happened to him? Nothing. He’s on probation, a $50,000 fine?
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty big for a guy on a government salary. (laughing)
CALLER: We’re talking directly could impact lives and the war on terror and the 9/11 Commission, so, anyway…
RUSH: Okay. Now, let me take you seriously here. I’m working on very little sleep and a lot of spent energy last night, so I’m getting giddy, and I don’t mean to sound disrespectful to you at all. Please, please forgive me if it sounded that way. Why do you think…? Why do you think…? I mean, here we’ve got Sandy Burglar dead to rights. We’ve got the justice department that’s run by the Bush administration. They choose all the prosecutors and the lawyers, the US attorneys and so forth. Why do you think this is?
CALLER: Well, I think there’s an obvious, blatant hypocrisy in the media, and they don’t want to fry him. They believe that his intentions were good.
RUSH: No, but this is not the media. The justice department could have nailed Sandy Burglar to the wall. They don’t do it. The justice department could have made this guy pay a huge price for this. There could have been a damn well big investigation and try to find out what the hell was going on. This is all about 9/11, doctored evidence. What’s…? The 9/11 Commission report? We know about Able Danger. Who’s trying to shut this down? What is it about this that they don’t want us to know? Here’s Burglar, and now you’ve got this Barrett report, and apparently — I was just talking about the independent counsel’s investigation of ten years into Henry Cisneros, and apparently — it’s got data in it about IRS abuse during the Clinton years, and the Democrats are trying to suppress that. Charles Grassley is trying to get that report in his hands. But again (sigh) Republicans are just different about the justice system than the Democrats are. Republicans don’t have doubts about their ability to win at the ballot box. You’ve got Burglar here, and they’d rather spend their time going after Martha Stewart.
CALLER: Well, I just think Republicans have their eye on a bigger prize, and they’re not going to be distracted by gnats like Sandy Berger, and I also… I mean, I know I’m biased but I just think there’s just more honor. You know, they want to honor the office of the national security advisor. As much as we don’t like Bill Clinton, he still was president of the United States, and we have respect for that office.
RUSH: I think there’s something to that. I do think that there is this desire. “Okay, look, previous administrations. I’m not going to be the guy that goes out and tries to put in jail the previous holders of this office and their associates. I’m just not.” I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Democrats don’t give a hell’s half acre about that. Whatever it takes them to put their hands back on the government, they’ll do. If it means putting me, DeLay, Bush, Rove, Libby, whoever they can in jail, they’ll do it. They don’t care it’s the only way they can. It doesn’t matter. If they could put you in jail for a reason they’d find a way. If they could put your husband in jail they’d find a way to put him in jail. But the Republicans, they’re not cut from the same cloth. There is not this same philosophy about waging the battle — and leave it to the experts to explain why. I can only speculate, but I appreciate the call, Susan, and God bless you and your husband, and thank you so much for sharing the truth about him and his love for country with us. Here’s David in Omaha. You’re next, on the cell phone. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush, and God bless you and the work that you do for our nation.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Hey, I’m wondering when — and I believe it will happen that Mr. DeLay will be exonerated and totally set free; I’m wondering when — Ronnie Earle and people like him are going to be, you know, made accountable for their actions.
RUSH: All right, let me ask you a simple question. When is the last — who is the last — prosecutor in this country you can remember being hit up for misconduct, sanctioned, penalized, called on the carpet? Can you name one for me?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Nor can I.
CALLER: But there has to be a first.
RUSH: These guys are elected. Now, Ronnie Earle is elected, and whatever retribution he gets will come at the ballot box. But in terms of… About the only way that this can happen, I think, is for complaints to go to like the Texas Bar Association — and that’s just a bunch of lawyers, and they’re not going to do anything to Ronnie Earle. I’m telling you, you’ve got overzealous prosecutors. You’ve got political prosecutors now. Some of them are out of control. They get obsessed with the power that they’ve got. Who knows what messages they get from higher-ups to carry out their orders or objections. But there’s really nothing anybody can do. You have to try to beat them in court, and it all goes back to what I keep saying: “A prosecutor makes a charge; everybody believes it.” It’s not a political bias; it’s just human nature. We have this thing, and the reason it’s in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, “innocent ’til proven guilty,” is because everybody thinks that the minute you’re accused, you are guilty.
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