The Senate is going to begin its debate here on all these resolutions, and Mitch McConnell, if this holds, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate has done a good job. “Senator John Warner will join,” this is weekend news, but it looks like it’s still held, “a unanimous Senate Republican caucus, 49 Republicans opposing a Senate vote on Warner’s anti-Bush administration resolution unless competing resolutions are also voted on.” This is a spokesman here for Warner saying, “‘Senator Warner supports the Senate Republican leadership’s effort to establish a free and open debate on Iraq on the Senate floor, including possible amendments.’ Earlier in the day…” and this goes back to Saturday.
“Earlier in the day Mr. Warner told colleagues during a closed door strategy meeting at the Library of Congress that he opposes the manner in which Harry Reid is conducting debate on his resolution, which condemns the surge. Senate Republicans are opposed to a vote on a Warner resolution unless they get votes on two others. One of those alternatives supports Mr. Bush’s plan and the other would prohibit cutting funds for the war. Republicans also want each resolution to require 60 votes to pass,” so they’re invoking the filibuster rule here. “Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, told reporters that he expects to have all 49 Republicans in the chamber, nine votes more than are needed for a filibuster to vote today to block the nonbinding resolution unless Reid relents and allows other resolutions to be voted on, one of which is a show of support.” Imagine how controversial that is! Reid allowing a resolution which supports the surge is “controversial,” and I can’t help but think: “What if the Senate came out with a united resolution in favor of victory?” I wonder what that would mean to the troops. I wonder what that would mean to their morale. I wonder what it might mean for the country’s morale? It’ll never happen of course.
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RUSH: Doug in Sacramento, my adopted hometown. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, 60 degree global warming dittos from Sacramento.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Hey my idea, Rush, was that I think the Democrats would happily and vigorously support a war that they could get credit for and could control.
RUSH: Nah. You think that. Everybody’s tendency is to think that, but the behavioral pattern of Democrats is to oppose war. You might find instances where they started wars, in Clinton’s case, but he fought it from 15,000 feet. He went in, by the way, without a UN resolution, but he was going in for a noble cause, ethnic cleansing.
CALLER: Yeah, remember how wistful they were, though, when he didn’t get to handle 9/11?
RUSH: Yeah. Well, they were upset that such a major event did not occur during Clinton’s presidency so that he could show his toughness and his skills and his brilliance and his genius by dealing with it. They were a little wistful, as you say, that it happened during the Bush administration. But if you go to Vietnam… I read a New York Times editorial today from 1916, and the New York Times editorial of 1916 was ripping the Democrats for sounding just like Germans in the pre-World War I days. It was uncanny. The only thing different about it was that the New York Times was not with the Democrats then, as they are now. This was a scathing editorial, accusing them of propagandizing, not joining the war effort. It even challenged their patriotism because of their position on the war. Democrats in the Civil War wanted to lose! It’s just something about these people, and it really isn’t unique, and it would be a mistake to say that if the Democrats were in power now, they would want victory here if they could take credit for it.
If they wanted that, they could change what they’re doing and secure victory, do what they could to secure it; raise morale and so forth, support the country — they can’t do it, though, because they don’t support the country; they don’t support the president — and then if we emerged victorious, they could claim credit for it, or partial. What they’re doing now is the exact opposite. Not only are they invested in defeat; they can’t permit victory! They cannot allow it politically. It will destroy them, if this works — and some of these Republicans that are joining them as well. They’re in a precarious, precarious position. They’ve already got their minds made up the war is lost. It’s just a matter of finding a way to convince everybody else and “bring the troops home,” but I’m telling you: if you’re going to judge Democrats and you’re going to roll the dice, always assume they are anti-war, because they are — and their base clearly is. Look, the Democratic Party is a party of liberalism, folks! Make no mistake about it. Shreveport, Louisiana, David, thanks for calling. You’re up next.
CALLER: Hello.
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: Mr. Limbaugh —
RUSH: Sir.
CALLER: — a pleasure. My thought on this global warming issue is that I don’t see that as being viable or having much proof, but the other issue with the accumulations of these emissions in the atmosphere? I do think those are a concern, and I just hate to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater, so to speak, on that particular issue.
RUSH: You think I’m suggesting throwing the CO2 baby out with the bathwater?
CALLER: Well, no, not completely, but people have a tendency to discredit science, different areas of science and then maybe take their eye off the ball, so to speak.
RUSH: Are you basically saying we shouldn’t forget our efforts to clean up pollution?
CALLER: Definitely. Especially as more and more countries come online.
RUSH: This is what bothers me. We do! We do the best job of cleaning up after our messes of any large industrialized nation in the world. If you’ve traveled you can see it. We hear about it. There’s a story in the stack today: “Even though they contribute the least to global warming, they are going to be hurt the hardest: the nation’s poor in the Third World.” I’m going to tell you: if you’re worried about pollution, go to any country that does not have freedom. You go to any socialist, non-real full market economy, particularly the Eastern Bloc, the old Soviet bloc, and take a look. It’s devastating! Capitalism, market economies depend on efficiencies; cleaning up messes and so forth. We do a bang-up job. That’s another thing that bothers me about all this is that we’re the primary culprits in all this pollution simply because of our size and so forth, and the Chinese and others get off scot-free, simply saying, “Well, we don’t have the ability to deal with it, Mr. Limbaugh. That’s why we must pick up their slack.”
It doesn’t mean I’m for pollution! This guy’s point is exactly what I said earlier. You’ve gotta be very careful how you deal with these people because if you disagree with them at all, you’re for pollution; you’re for dirty water; you’re for dirty air! Don’t let ’em bulldoze you into that, folks. It’s not the case whatsoever. In fact, opposing liberalism in and of itself stands for continued progress and liberty and freedom and the improvement in the quality of as many lives as possible. Liberalism is what depresses the expansion of the quality of life, because they don’t think it’s possible for people. They don’t think it’s possible. This is a piece by Mary Katharine Ham at Townhall.com. She has a column: “Liberals assume minorities are incapable of achieving.” She’s right, but it’s not just minorities. They assume the poor in general are incapable of achieving. They assume “the average” are incapable of achieving. Let me give you some excerpts of her piece here.
“This week, the political world is on fire with the news that the first tolerably clean, well-spoken, and non-threatening black man ever has stormed onto the American political stage, poised to take his rightful spot at the head of the pack of Democratic presidential hopefuls. Or so Joe Biden tells us…. Others think the revolution had already begun. To many, candidates such as Harold Ford, Jr., in Tennessee and Michael Steele in Maryland [Lynn Swann?] — both of whom vied smartly and competitively for U.S. Senate seats in 2006 — looked sufficiently showered and sounded sufficiently schooled. For instance, ‘Hardball’s’ Chris Matthews had these words of high praise for Michael Steele’s ad campaign: ‘I love the ads, my wife loves the ads, they’re really funny, some of them. And very unthreatening. An African-American guy, it seems, has to run an ad that’s so unthreatening that he’s almost child-like in his presentation, but it seems to be working,’ he said in October 2006. Question. Why is it always liberals who seem so genuinely, overtly surprised when black candidates are viable candidates, and in their surprise, evoke old, damaging stereotypes about them?
“If you’ll excuse a Bushism, I think it’s because much of their political philosophy and existence depends upon misunderestimating minorities. Minorities are getting lower grades than other students. Lower the standards! Minorities aren’t getting into colleges at the same rates as other students. Give them special race-based admissions programs! Minorities need help. Give them expensive social programs of questionable [worth]! The liberal solution to these problems has never been one that grants minorities the dignity of achieving success,” which I have always said! They look at the strata. They look at the people at the top; look at the people at the bottom, and think it’s unfair the people at the top should be there. They lower the people at the top! In class, education, economics, socially, what have you, they never seek to elevate people from the bottom, because they don’t think that the people at the bottom can do it, because they have arrogant contempt and condescension for people. This is why this whole global warming business is theirs.
Capitalism versus socialism? They don’t think average Americans can achieve in the capitalistic system! The capitalistic system is so unfair, and they’re out to destroy it — because it will put them in power when their blessed socialism arrives in as many places as possible. Because you can’t do it on your own they think you’re going to need a little help, and they want to be the ones to offer it so you’ll keep voting for them, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this whole business of global warming, to me, represents a huge opportunity to illustrate what liberalism is really, really all about and how it contrasts with conservatism. Conservatism only wants the best for people, as many people as possible achieving, meeting their goals, setting lofty ones, utilizing ambition and drive and desire and passion to achieve those dreams and goals. The liberals smirk at that sort of thing. When you go anywhere in the world and look at where socialism, extreme socialism and communism rule, don’t tell me that’s the solution to any problem on the face of the earth, including pollution or global warming or economics or what have you, because it isn’t and there’s no evidence that it is in the history of time.