BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I tell you, this is one of those days when I actually asked myself, what would this country, what would America do without me? It is so absurd and ridiculous out there in the Drive-By Media today. Finally it’s time for me. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network. Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists, all across the bountiful fruited plain. I am indeed America’s Real Anchorman, a Doctor of Democracy and truth detector, all combined into one harmless, lovable little fuzzball, firmly ensconced here in the prestigious Attila the Hun chair at the distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Our telephone number, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address Rush@eibnet.com. I told you people, I said, “I hope somebody asks Rudy Giuliani what he thinks of the Fitzgerald prosecution of Libby.” I told you what would happen. I told you these guys are a fraternity and Rudy has confirmed that which I predicted last week. The Democrats and the Drive-By Media are literally going nuts. They’re going insane over a non-story, and that is the firing of eight US attorneys by the Bush administration, and now they want to call Rove. Congressional Democrats yesterday singled out Karl Rove for questioning about the firing of eight federal prosecutors and whether the dismissals were politically motivated. Even if they were, it’s entirely permissible. This is a non-story. Bill Clinton in one of his first acts after being inaugurated, crowned, whatever, 1993, fired all 93 US attorneys. This is quite common. You get your own people in there. These are appointed positions. Now, the thing with Clinton was, he was aiming for one US attorney, and that was the guy in Arkansas, the guy in Little Rock. I forget what it was about, but Clinton wanted the guy gone, and to cover or mask the fact that he was aiming at one single guy, got rid of all 93. Nobody said a word. Chuck Schumer is out there demanding all kinds of things today. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. We’ll start with Good Morning America today and George “Stephy” Stephanopoulos. He was filling in, I guess, as a guest host here. Remember now, he’s a former Clintonista, a former West Winger in the Clinton White House, now with ABC at the pinnacle of the Drive-By Media. Robin Roberts said to him, “How big could this be?” STEPHANOPOULOS: Democrats are going to try to take this right to the White House based on these stories this morning. They’re going to say the president’s former top lawyer, Harriet Miers, was involved. His top political advisor, Karl Rove was involved. Even the president himself new about it. You can expect subpoenas to Karl Rove to come up and testify. He might try to fight it but it’s going to be hard for him to resist that. And on top of that, Robin, as we said already, there are calls for attorney general Gonzales to resign. RUSH: This frosts me. This is nothing. This is a non-story, zip, zero, nada. But it fits in with the pattern the Democrats said they were going to employ. They said they were going to emulate the Newt Gingrich tactic of just whatever the president does, criticize it, consider it a violation of law, violation of ethics, violation of something, and they’re just relentless, not going to let up. Chucky Schumer today was on Capitol Hill, and he held a press conference, and here’s a portion of what he said. SCHUMER: Today’s staff resignation does not take heat off the attorney general — RUSH: Stop the tape for a second, stop the tape and recue that. What happened is that Gonzales’ chief of staff stepped down today, and that makes me mad. Why does the White House give these people away? Why do they give ’em up? Clearly this guy was asked to resign to try to take some of the heat off of this. This is a non-story. You give the left a scalp, and they’re just going to want more. The White House dispenses with Rumsfeld; it’s not going to satisfy them. They’re going to move on to Rice. They’re going to move on to anybody else. Now they’re going after Gonzales over this. Gonzales’ chief of staff walks the plank, gets thrown overboard. I don’t know what the White House expects. They expect everybody to be bought off with that? No, that’s like pouring blood in the water with a bunch of liberal sharks swimming around. They want more. Anyway, here’s the Schumer bite again in toto. SCHUMER: Today’s staff resignation does not take heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature. Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libby, the next fall guy. We now have direct evidence that Attorney General Gonzales was carrying out the political wishes of the president — RUSH: So what? SCHUMER: — in at least some of these firings. RUSH: It’s a non-story. SCHUMER: A startling amount of information about the White House’s role has emerged in the past few days. US attorneys have always been above politics, and this administration has blatantly manipulated the US attorney system to serve its political means. RUSH: All right, I’m going to tell you something, and I mentioned this to you last week. I forget this guy’s name, but I think he was there when Bush was inaugurated in 2000 — forget his name, but the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is Manhattan, which is a big post, was a Chuck Schumer protg, and he was there for five or six years. If there was somebody else prior to him, then this guy who was Schumer’s protg was second. He was there for a number of years. A Chuck Schumer protg was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. They finally got a new guy in there — I don’t know, a year and a half, or two years ago — a man by the name of Mike Garcia, finally a Bush appointee after four or five years of his administration, and Schumer now has the audacity to say that US attorneys have always been above politics? See, the trick here is that when you get your crowd, Clinton holdovers, in any of these agencies, be it justice or the state department or the CIA or the Pentagon, why, that’s fine, and if you start weeding them out and getting rid of them, all of a sudden you’re turning political. Schumer went on to say, the more we learn the more it seems that people at high levels in the White House have been involved in the US attorney purge. We’re talking eight US attorneys. I’ve looked at some of these people that are being fired, and some of them are being fired for cause. Some of them just haven’t been doing that good a job. Some of it may be long overdue. But as I say, when Bill Clinton axed all 93 US attorneys at once, in one day, did Chuck Schumer say anything? Did he talk about the disarray that it caused? Folks, I want you to hear this. I want you to listen to me. The president can fire any US attorney he wants. They work for him. He has the Constitutional authority. What the hell is this debate all about? Does Schumer ask the president who he can fire in his office? Does the president get on the Democrats’ case when they fire any of their staffers in the House or Senate? This is called separation of powers. And the Democrats in Congress have no control over this. I guess they can conduct hearings all they want and the White House will deal with it as they will, but this is a contrived, phony controversy. It’s been concocted by the Democrats. And of course the Drive-Bys just fall right in line and broadcast this as if there is something to it. Chuck Schumer is a demagogue of the first order. If you hear the word demagogue and you’re not quite sure, if you’re from Rio Linda and you’re not quite sure what it is, just think Chuck Schumer 90% of the time that he opens his mouth. They’re not going to let this go until they get a scalp, and this chief of staff to Gonzales is not going to be nearly enough for him. But it’s a non-story. It’s pure politics just like the Drive-By Media is carrying the water for the Democrats on the war in Iraq. That’s purely politics, and even the Washington Post today in their second editorial, in so doing, really scorches the Democrats for their irresponsibility in the way they’re going about this. And it is hilarious. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Somebody needs to ask Chuck Schumer a question. “Can we assume, then, Senator Schumer, that if a Democrat is elected president, say hypothetically Mrs. Clinton is elected president in 2008, are you telling us that Mrs. Clinton will not be free to fire any United States attorney because to do so would be political? Is that the standard now.” Why didn’t Stephanopoulos ask him that? I’ll tell you why he didn’t ask him because it never is going to come up. If they want to fire US attorneys, they’re going to do it and they’re not going to have anybody say anything about it. The press will go right along with them, “Oh, it’s normal presidential policy.” In a way, in a strategic, or maybe tactical sense, this is what you get with the new tone. The only reason Bush didn’t put a bunch of his own guys in — I say “his own guys,” people with his view of the law, people with his view, these are appointed positions, US attorney positions are. If he’d done this in the first year of his first term, then yip yip yip yip yahoo. Now all these other so-called scandals are piling up, and anything Bush does is going to come under the same rubric, fall under the same umbrella. It’s a scandal, and Bush is covering something up, and, of course; the Drive-Bys are smelling blood. They are defining their relevance these days by whether or not they will be able to destroy a presidency before that second term has been completed. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: To Detroit, Jim, you’re next. Nice to have you. Actually, you’re first today, so it’s good to have you with us. Hello. CALLER: Okay. It’s nice talking to you. I was just making a point to your screener that I think Schumer and the liberals are sucking everybody in. They’re always on the offense, always demanding people resign, and it just seems like their whole strategy is keep everybody playing defense all the time, and I think you’re using a lot of time doing the same thing, playing defense when you should be playing offense. RUSH: I play offense by playing defense. CALLER: Okay. RUSH: No, really. Do you hear me defending and not attacking? When people go out and attack the institutions and traditions I think have made the country great, when people attack people that I admire, what am I supposed to do, sit here and ignore it” The only thing, when it comes to that, when people attack me I ignore that because they’re small fry. You know, why elevate them? We’re talking about people here who are trying to destroy the president of the United States and his presidency. CALLER: Right. RUSH: And there’s a Drive-By Media out there that’s trying to saturate the country with this stuff, and it has to be explained to people, because people like you who hear this can influence other people, and hopefully provide some sort of an obstacle or bulwark to this. But I can’t ignore this, and I’m not going to. In fact, I would like to go a step further with this Schumer business and this whole US attorney thing. You tell me if this sounds like defense out there, Jim. I want every Democrat senator to — I know what the charge is, by the way: If you keep talking about this, you’re not talking about our side and our guys and so forth and we’re not going on offense. We handle it all here, folks. It’s a three-hour program. We’ve got 15 hours a week. We do everything. This falls under the category of I’m not doing enough. Now I’m doing what I do wrong. I’m being sucked in; I’m being used; I’m being tricked; I’m being fooled into going on defense every day. Not true.I want every Democrat, every Democrat senator to state that they will not urge a Democrat president to fire any of the current US attorneys should a Democrat become president, including Schumer. I would like for Chuck Schumer to release all records maintained in any of his offices in which he has advocated the hiring or firing of any US attorney, including those in his own state. This is common practice. Senators recommend judges to the president. Senators recommend US attorneys from their states. Senators will argue against certain US attorneys. All of this goes on. It’s just not in public hearings. But these kinds of things happen frequently. Let’s see Chuck Schumer’s file. You want offense, Jim? We can go on offense all day. Where are the Republicans on this? Republicans are sitting around letting this happen. Let the Republicans return some fire here. Let the White House return some fire. Let’s see some files; let’s see some letters from Senator Schumer. Let’s see some records from him, record he’s maintained in any of his offices. My friends, I know, but I don’t know. But I know, because I understand how this stuff works. I know that Schumer and a lot of other senators have advocated the hiring or firing of a lot of US attorneys over the course of their careers, including those in their own states. So let’s see any letters and any e-mails that are in Senator Schumer’s office. The Drive-Bys are not going to ask any members of Congress what their roles are in influencing the selection process and why is that? What has Schumer done in this process? We want to see his records, because I can tell you right now he’s done a lot of things to influence, as have all other senators. But we’re only hearing about one senator, Pete Domenici, got hold of somebody, in Gonzales’ office, “Look, the US attorney out here is screwing up. This guy is not doing a good job.” Oh, they’re zeroing in on that. You think that’s unique? You think that’s unprecedented? This is the kind of thing that happens all the time. Now, my demanding records from Senator Schumer is not going to get it done. Somebody in government, elected, is going to have to do it to get it done, or maybe won’t get done, put Schumer on the defensive at least. It is a non-story, folks, and it’s being trumped up because it fits the template here, the action line of the story, that Bush is corrupt; we gotta get rid of him; and everything he does is secret and in private and it’s the most power crazed administration that we’ve ever had, and all of this is bunk. Lorraine in Baltimore, you’re next on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Hello. CALLER: Hello. I’m so glad God loaned you the talent and thank you for using it. My point is related, although it’s not about judges. The Clintons did not shrink in Travelgate or in getting rid of the medical doctor immediately when they got into the White House. I think that’s sort of related. RUSH: Yeah, it’s a good point. Travel office firings. I’ll tell you who made a big deal about that. It was the new media, the conservative media. The Drive-Bys were not interested in that. This was the Clintons, if you’ve forgotten, they got rid of a lot of people in the travel office of the White House. The travel office of the White House books the travel for drive-by journalists who are going to accompany the president on various junkets and trips, and the travel office arranges hotels and airplane flights for those who can’t fit aboard Air Force One and even assigns those who will be on Air Force One. They got rid of a couple people running the travel office and tried to get their own local travel agent people involved, get them in on the deal with a commission or a financial cut. The travel office people weren’t just fired. Hillary Clinton went out and tried to destroy their reputations, accusing them of all kinds of crimes in conducting the way the travel office was operated, and they were exonerated, and it was almost like a Ray Donovan circumstance, “Where do we go to get our reputations back?” Now, it was made a big story, but not by the Drive-By Media. They did get rid of the White House doctor. That’s okay. I can understand somebody wanting his own doctor in there. They probably got rid of the White House tailor. You people understand — sorry. I don’t mean that to sound condescending when I say “you people.” It’s just a figure of speech with me. But do you understand the president doesn’t pack his own bags for a trip, and do you understand the president probably doesn’t pick out what he wears every day? Do you understand that there is a White House tailor and there’s a White House barber and there’s a White House this and that and the other? A White House chef, a White House interior designer and decorator. There’s a White House social secretary, all these people, some of them been there a long, long time but presidents, if they want their own tailor, bring somebody in. If they want to populate their travel office with their own — they can do it. Somebody in the travel office was assigned to guard duty at the Washington Monument, I think, or something like that. Some lowly position that the Clintons did. But again, no ruckus was raised over this. It’s just a 100 percent non-story. Thanks, Lorraine, for the phone call. Great to talk to you.BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: El Rushbo here on the cutting edge of societal evolution. Once more returning to Senator Schumer. Schumer is out there saying that we need to fire Alberto Gonzales because Gonzales acted improperly in trying to fire US attorneys. Gonzales is the boss, therefore Gonzales is accountable, and therefore Gonzales needs to go. Now, by his own logic, Schumer should resign. His staffers, when he was in charge, like he still is, the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, remember illegally pulled credit reports on lieutenant governor Michael Steele in Maryland, credit reports and credit card information? That is a felony. Now, Chuck got rid of one of the staffers, maybe two, but shouldn’t he resign if he knew about illegalities after the fact? What are we to conclude here, that Senator Schumer suborns identity theft? By the way, the AP story here, “The chief White House lawyer floated the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys at the start of President Bush’s second term, but the Justice Department objected and eventually recommended the eight dismissals that have generated a political firestorm two years later.” That would have been Harriet Miers. Harriet Miers at the start of the second term wanted to broom all of them. And of course they loved Harriet Miers when she was appointed as a Supreme Court justice. She’s nominated to be on the Supreme Court. They loved her, and they supported her because, of course, those of us in the vast right-wing conspiracy — and I am the Mr. Big in the vast right-wing conspiracy — said no, this won’t do. A troubled time, for those of us on the right, but nevertheless we prevailed. So the White House wanted to get rid of all — Harriet Miers did, that’s the White House. Now, who in the justice department says no? Nobody in Clinton’s justice department — maybe they did say no. Clinton said, “Screw you, I’m president.” Think there were a lot of Bush 41 holdovers in the justice department that wanted to sabotage the Clinton administration? If Clinton thought so, they were gone, baby. And, of course, Bush had the new tone and so forth. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Oh, don’t tell me I’m seeing what I’m seeing. Alberto Gonzales in a press conference saying I acknowledge mistakes were made here in the firing of these eight US attorneys. Don’t give them that! Why don’t you just put a gun in your mouth and shoot yourself? That’s the only thing that’s going to make them happy, Alberto, is if you commit suicide on camera. “I acknowledge mistakes were made.”
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