RUSH: (story) “A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality. ‘The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable,’ said Sen. Russ Feingold.” Feingold was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday, and Stephy said, “Tomorrow in the Senate you’re going to introduce a revolution to censure George W. Bush. Let me show that to our viewers. It says, ‘Resolved that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans.’ It’s a big step. Why are you taking it now?”
FEINGOLD: It’s an unusual step. It’s a big step. But what the president did, by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and the laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered. There can be debate about whether the law should be changed. There could be debate about how best to fight terrorism, we all believe that there should be wiretapping in appropriate cases. But the idea that the president can just make up a law in violation of his oath of office has to be answered.
RUSH: I don’t think that has happened. They continue to miscast this as domestic surveillance, and that’s not what this is. So Stephanopoulos says to him (breathless), “If you’re so convinced…! If you’re so convinced…! If you’re so convinced — Oh, gosh, this is so exciting! If you’re so convinced that the president has broken the law, why not just file an article of impeachment?”
FEINGOLD: Well, you know, that’s an option that we could look at if somebody thought that was a really good idea. There are other options out there. In fact, this conduct is right in the strike zone, even though the Founding Fathers, they didn’t have strike zones, they didn’t have baseball, but this is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors.
RUSH: Okay, so the impeachment side is being taken care of by John Conyers because articles of impeachment have to start out there anyway. They start in the House judiciary committee and then they appoint managers and they debate if and they vote on it, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I told you. I predicted, ladies and gentlemen, every bit of this, and I’ve been doing so since the 2000 election was over. I know you think that they are reacting as though they feel a victory here, and I think it’s the exact opposite. I think they feel defeated. I think they thought the port deal would go on and on and on, and they’re back to impeachment now because the port deal is over, they’re trying to revive the NSA scandal.
They didn’t care about that once the port deal had come up, and so their toadies in the drive-by media are following along wherever they go here, but either way this is going to end up being a rallying call for our side, because if they take the House, if Democrats win the House, they will do this, they will start impeachment hearings if for no other reason than to get even for the terrible injustices done to William Jefferson Blythe Clinton. Now, we’ve got this other Feingold bite. Stephanopoulos says, “Well, I’m not sure the president would not see it as a harsh approach. I’m not sure he’s going to come out and apologize, but in fact I’m pretty sure he won’t do that.”
FEINGOLD: What I’m interested in is my colleagues acknowledging that we as a Congress have to stand up to a president who acts as if the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on September 11th. We didn’t enact martial law on September the 11th. We still have a constitutional form of government and if the Congress of United States does not stand up for that authority at this point it will be a historic failure of our —
STEPHANOPOULOS: You are the only —
RUSH: Oh, man, oh, man. You know, can I take you back to last week and the last three weeks? The last three weeks the Democrats were excited because they’ve gotten to the right of George W. Bush on, what? National security! They finally found the issue where they could convince the American people that they, too, see an enemy, and that enemy was the United Arab Emirates, and so the port deal went down to a stinging, humiliating end. The Democrats, in less than two days, are now back to the NSA scandal as though we don’t have a national security problem. They’ve taken care of it by icing the sheiks from Dubai.
So now we no longer have an enemy, we got rid of the enemy. I told you this was going to be the case. I said, “If these guys are this serious about national security, then let’s make them answer,” and Feingold has. This is such a gift. This is such a gift. Feingold’s answered without even being asked. I said, “Let’s ask him. Okay, will you allow provisions of the Patriot Act to help ensure that no infiltration occurs at the ports no matter who owns these things because it’s so risky there? Will you allow continued support — or permit continued support — for the president’s National Security Agency foreign intelligence surveillance? Will you do that?”
Feingold just said (interpreting), “No, no. We’re not going to do that.” He’s just said, “We don’t care about national security. We don’t give one diddly-squat about it!” The port deal, I’m telling you again, was not about national security. But the Democrats wanted you to think that they thought it was, but they have now, in less than two days… Well, make it three. No, because it happened yesterday, two days. In less than two days, they have done exactly what I knew they would do. They’ve gotten cocky; they’ve gotten confident, at the same time feeling a little bit disappointed the port deal ended so quickly.
So they have to go back to this impeachment thing, but in the process they’re demonstrating how national security is just something they can pretend to care about when necessary and disregard it when it’s no longer needed. But here’s the kicker, this is the kicker from Feingold yesterday on This Week with Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos said, “Are you really positive that this is going to make any difference in our national security? The administration pointed out again and that the security in the ports is going to be done by Customs, done by the Coast Guard. Wasn’t this just the Democrats and some Republicans playing politics?”
FEINGOLD: You know, I’m not certain it’s going to make a difference. But, you know, we have to err on the side of safety when it comes to this kind of an issue. We have to make sure that we do everything we can, and that means not just sort of opening up every kind of port deal to the free market. It would be nice if we could do that, but it’s too dangerous. So we do have to consider our national security in these situations, and I think it’s a good point of caution that the president, I think, would even admit was not the finest hour of his administration.
RUSH: All right, so here’s the kicker. We hear from Feingold; we have to err on the side of safety, side of caution when it comes to the ports. But not when it comes to eavesdropping on Al-Qaeda and terrorist suspects. Now, we don’t want to make any errors there. Err on the side…? He just admitted, “I’m not certain this is going to make any difference in security, whether DPW runs the ports or somebody else does.” Now, as I said earlier in this half hour, liberalism and the modern Democratic Party cannot contain its radicalism and its tendencies to go over the cliff, folks. Now you got Feingold in his censure movement; you’ve got John Conyers trying to push legislation that would call on Congress to determine whether there are grounds for impeachment of the president, and also Feingold’s censure. All it’s about is they’re mad at Bush because he wants to intercept calls made to or received from Al-Qaeda.
This is a classic illustration of what I have been warning you people about regarding these liberal Democrats for the longest time. Every time the president goes down in the polls, they see a wide-open door, huge opening, and they end up telling us who they really are. What they reveal is the kind of thing that will strike mainstream America as nutty and reckless. Mainstream press will not categorize it that way but the mainstream American population will see it that way. You might have heard some Democrats saying — there’s some media people yesterday on television saying — this is a great effort to keep heat on the White House. Wrong. What it does is elevate an issue that works in our favor, the NSA debate. I mean, that polls dramatically favorably for the president among the American people. Once again, the Democrats portray themselves here as some oddball lunatic fringe movement that has more in common with Ramsey Clark and Saddam Hussein and George McGovern than it does with the average American in a post-9/11 world.
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RUSH: Let’s go to This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This is during the roundtable discussion: George Will, Donna Brazile, Claire Shipman, and Jay Carney of TIME magazine. They’re discussing Feingold’s censure movement here. George Will says, “If I were Frist I’d bring it to a vote. I’d let the Democrats stand up to this,” and Jay Carney says…
CARNEY: I don’t think there’s great harm here for Democrats, not because they get to talk about national security but because it won’t go anywhere particularly, but it is something that reminds the base, which is a little mystified about where the party is headed, that they, you know, don’t like what George W. Bush did on specific issue.
RUSH: Now, how worthwhile is that? You know, these people are not even focused on winning. They just want people to know they’re mad. So here’s Jay Carney, said, “Oh, no. It will keep heat. You know, it’s not going to do any great harm for Democrats.” Jay, who, by the way, is the husband of Claire Shipman, who is also on the roundtable. (interruption) You didn’t that know? Yeah, Claire Shipman and Jay Carney are slave owner and husband. Well, “husband and wife,” if you prefer that, and slave master. I take it back, “slave master,” not slave owner. Slave master and wife…husband. You got me off track here. I was in the middle of a brilliant point, capable only of being made by me on this program, particularly on a Monday.
But he thinks it’s going to be good for the Democrats not because he could talk about national security but because it won’t go anywhere politically. No great harm? There is big harm in this because it is unmasking them again. If you notice — and I’ve argued over the years that — Democrats and liberals only win when they pretend to be conservatives, but that’s not where their hearts, that’s not where their passions are. It’s why they’re liberals. At the end of the day, they unmask themselves. The angrier they get, the more enraged they get, the more the truth comes out of their mouths — and when it does, that’s when they suffer at the ballot box.
I’ll give you an example, there’s many, but the best one is the Wellstone memorial. It’s why conservatism is the dominant movement in America. You know, we’re not always unified and on track, but at least it’s our principles that guide us, not our lies and not our deceptions. So here they’re out there. Now what they want to do is demonstrate to the base, “Oh, yeah, I’ll…” Remember how the base was happy when Harry Reid pulled that stunt in the Senate to shut it down, basically? “It’s about time!” they said, “We had a Democrat with a spine in there.” Feingold is running for the president. He’s running for the nomination. He’s appealing to the base.
He knows this isn’t going to go anywhere, and his Dem buddies out there know it’s not going to go anywhere. The only way it’s going to go anywhere is if the House is won by the Democrats in November. The impeachment I’m talking about. This censure business? George Will is right. Okay, propose it, and let’s see the Democrats stand up for it. Donna Brazile pretty much agrees. She says that the move here by Feingold will help the Democrats find their voice. You know, they said that six years about Bill Clinton. He just hadn’t “found his voice yet,” needs to find his voice. The folly of that is I guess the Democrats still think they need to prove that they hate Bush so that their base doesn’t abandon them.
BRAZILE: Well, look, I believe that it’s important that the establishment inside-the-Beltway Democrats find their voice and know what they’re standing up for and begin to address some of the concerns that the activists are raising about what’s taking place in Washington, DC.
RUSH: I want to tell you, folks, that what these people are giving us is a gift, and the reason is because it exactly, precisely reveals what their true mind-set is. I remind you again, the aftermath of the port deal. Well, throughout the whole port deal the Democrats were portraying themselves as strong on national security, and they were doing that falsely. That wasn’t about national security at all. Now that that issue is over with there’s no reason for national security. Now we gotta go after the spy program. We gotta go after all these other things. We gotta impeach Bush! We gotta censure Bush. Think of the message this is sending to the enemies.
Imagine if this were going the other way around.
Imagine if on al-Jazeera a bunch of Al-Qaeda leaders were standing up and talking about what a louse bin Laden was, what a failure bin Laden was, what a goofball he was, how he’s taking us down the wrong path and somebody needs to find bin Laden and behead him. What do you think the American people’s reaction would be?
“We’re winning!”
Oh, we would be excited if we saw dissension in the ranks at Al-Qaeda. Well, what do you think this is doing to these people? It’s making them feel as happy as they could be. They’ve got to be sitting over there in the caves wherever they are and laughing themselves silly and applauding the Democrats who unwittingly always end up choosing the sides of tyrants, dictators, and thugs. It’s predictable. Now to the phones. Who wants to weigh in on this? Ah, here we go. Canton, Ohio, John, you’re up first today. It’s great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Good to talk to you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Yeah, I find it rather ironic that the senator who restricted our First Amendment rights with his campaign finance reform legislation wants to censure the president who failed to veto that garbage piece of legislation in this issue.
RUSH: That is an excellent point. That is a fabulous point. This is a guy working with Senator McCain that just chopped up the First Amendment and he’s out there talking about the president has just torn into the Bill of Rights with the spy program. Excellent point out there, John.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: And I’ll tell you, this is what I mean. “People are going to figure this out.” The Democrats still think they are dealing with a population that’s informed only by the drive-by media. I’ll give you an example. Our old buddy Evan Thomas, who is one of the most arrogant, condescending elitists in Washington, he’s at Newsweek. He’s in management. Well, he actually writes at Newsweek, too. I think they combine labor and management over there. He’s the guy that said during the 2004 presidential campaign the mainstream media, the drive-by media, was worth 15 points to John Kerry. Remember that? Well, he was on a local Washington, DC, political chat show. I think they have to bring a couple of those commentaries out of the cemetery and open the coffin.
I mean, it’s that old a show and the guests are — and Evan Thomas was asked about the port deal, and I don’t have the story right in front of me, but I can paraphrase it. It will give you an indication of what I have always known. He said something to the effect, “Oh, this port deal, that was perfect for talk radio, because the idiots out there could understand it. It was bumper sticker simple. It was easy to demagogue.” The idiots — meaning the American people — could understand it. He said, “I’m for the port deal, but it was so easy to demagogue.” So condescension, arrogance, part of liberalism: he’s looking out at you and the audience at talk radio as a bunch of boobs and as a bunch of idiots. You just don’t have the sophistication, the education, the abilities, the knowledge, to understand these intricate, important issues and so forth.
This is a guy who helped write the piece that Bush is in the bubble in the White House, has no clue what’s going on in America. Well, this last call from John in Canton proves just who it is that’s out of touch. Evan Thomas has no clue that anybody could figure this out. He didn’t even think of it. It wouldn’t even strike him. So you are still viewed, folks, I want you to understand, the people in the mainstream press, the drive-by media — I think Evan Thomas is just an example of all of them — look at you as rubes. You are just idiots. You are talk radio mind-numbed robots. You’re hicks even though I, of course, was one of the few talk hosts not demagoguing the issue. I was for it. I doubt that he even knows that. I doubt that many in the mainstream press inside the Beltway even that know. So make no mistake. Evan Thomas, just like any other liberal Democrat, whether they’re in elected office or in the media, you’re an idiot; you have no hope, you have no prayer, and we’d just as soon not have to deal with you.
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RUSH: Here’s what Evan Thomas said. I got the actual story from News Busters, which is a conservative media watchdog group. “Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas condescendingly charged, on this weekend’s edition of Inside Washington, that opposition to the UAE ports deals resonated with the public ‘because it’s something that simple idiots can understand,'” and it’s easily demagoguable by talk radio hosts. The subject matter of the ports deal was “a classic for talk radio” because “you can get it on a bumper sticker.” So just so you know, not only do they have no respect for people like me, and it’s actually because they’re insanely jealous and envious and also their own arrogance, they have no use for you, either.
In fact, they probably run around and tell each other that they’re happy talk radio came along so that you stupid idiots out there don’t pollute their subscription lists at TIME and Newsweek. They’re happy to be done with you. They’re happy that their magazine is not going into some shack with guns and heads of dead animals on the wall, and a septic tank in the backyard. They only want these in the think tanks and these upscale homes and offices and so forth. Back to the ports deal. (story) “A leading Republican opponent of the collapsed Dubai ports deal said on Sunday that he would press ahead with legislation requiring U.S. ownership of infrastructure deemed critical to homeland security.” This is Duncan Hunter, who I like, House Armed Services Committee chairman. He’s from California.
He said that under his bill, it would be up to the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to identify facilities critical to national defense, and then tell those people that own them, you’ve got to sell them. “If something defined by the secretary of defense as being critical American infrastructure, we would give a five-year period for divestment by the parent company so you don’t have a fire sale.” Five-year divestment period. This could include bridges, tunnels, and water plants that are owned by the Europeans and the Australians. It could involve the ChiComs and their ownership of the ports out in the left coast. Five years. Now, look, as I said, I understand and I like Duncan Hunter, but if this is such a risk, it poses such problem, five years? That’s enough time.
You tell the terrorists, “Okay, you’ve got five years to plan an attack using these non-American infrastructure owners and facilities to get the job done.” If we’re this exposed, five years seems like an awful long time to wait. Now, on the Democratic side, the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, the mayor of Kooksville, Howard Dean, sought to capitalize Saturday on the recent divide between President Bush and congressional Republicans over the ports deal, arguing that the Republican Party has a pre-9/11 mind-set on ensuring safety at the US ports of entry. Now, this is classic. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing at the Democrat National Committee, because here you have what’s-his-face, Feingold, out there and his censure movement in effect punting security now.
“The Port deal is over with! We don’t have to worry about security anymore. There was only one threat. It was United Arab Emirates owning a bunch of terminals. Other than that, now that security is over. We can go back. We can kill the NSA domestic spy program, the foreign intelligence gathering program. We could go back and do everything we can. We can impeach Bush; we can censure Bush. He’s lied to the American people. He lied to us about war, took us to a war we didn’t need to fight,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, “botching the war on terror,” and yet here’s Dean the day before in the Democrats’ response to the president’s radio address saying, “We’re to the right of President Bush on this. We are the party of national security. The president and the Republicans have a pre-9/11 mind-set.” So while Dean is trying to hold onto this national security business, other Democrats have basically just punted it without even being asked the trick question.
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