RUSH: I knew it. I knew it. I told you people. I knew this was what was going to happen, and it has happened. Dingy Harry took to the microphones after the vote for cloture in the Senate this morning on the immigration bill went down the tubes. They needed 60 votes to shut off debate and basically end debate and they didn’t have the vote. They got 33. ‘The Senate refused to limit debate on overhauling US immigration law, as Democrats urged President Bush to rally Republicans to rescue the legislation. [Dingy] Harry appealed to President Bush to twist the arms of Republicans who voted against limiting debate saying an inability to pass the legislation would produce headlines that the president fails again.’ This is the president’s bill. This is a Republican bill. The bill that’s on the floor is not a Democrat bill. It is a bill that was worked on by Democrats and Republicans in cooperation with the president. That’s why he wants it failing. That’s why he brought the Dorgan amendment back. I told you this yesterday. I even told some of my friends who disagreed with me that that’s what Dingy Harry was trying to do. He brings this Dorgan amendment back after it was already defeated two weeks ago. It passes very, very early this morning, shortly after midnight. When he said he was going to have this cloture vote today, a couple of days ago, the votes weren’t there and he knew they weren’t there. He wants this thing to go down the tubes because he thinks that this is going to split the Republican Party wide open. He thinks this is going to sweep the Democrats into a massive electoral victory because he’s misreading the tide of public opinion out there on this.
In fact, when I opened the program this morning, or this afternoon, depending on where you are, I said a clear sign the Dorgan amendment is coming back was he wants to kill the bill and blame the Republicans. From his standpoint, whether he’s right or wrong, it may be smart politics for him to do this because he knows it’s not going to pass. See, these guys, all these people in Washington think, incorrectly, but they think that they are judged by us on how many bills they pass. When something big and comprehensive fails, why, they think the country gets really angry at that. The truth is that most people are the exact opposite. Just because a bill fails doesn’t mean, ‘Oh, my God, the country’s falling apart, they didn’t get a bill.’ We don’t run around talking about, ‘Did they get the bill today or did they not?’ unless it’s something majorly disastrous like this. But they’re just misreading everything. They think that they’re going to be really chalked up a big failure to Bush and the Republicans on this, and I knew it. I knew it. Once again, folks, this alone should jack up my accuracy rating another tenth of a point.
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RUSH: All right. Here’s Dingy Harry, after the immigration bill failed to get 60 votes this morning. This is what he said.
REID: Why in the world would anyone object to delaying the cloture vote? But that is what has happened here. Uh, I think that’s unfortunate, because I told the secretary of homeland security, Judge Chertoff, that the message in the newspaper is going to be: ‘Democrats for cloture to continue the debate on…immigration. Republicans oppose it. President Bush fails again.’
RUSH: That’s what he wants! I knew it. I knew that’s what he was angling for earlier this week when he was going to bring this vote today. Now, there’s an alternate possibility here. It’s not all that likely, but it’s possible. It could be that Dingy Harry actually is trying to scare Republicans into changing their vote and coming out and voting for cloture and to get this thing on down the road and passed, and it could well be that he’s trying to light a fire under President Bush over there at the G8. (You know, President Bush is trying to deal with Putin and the missile shield business. Putin told him where he can put his missile shield, by the way, earlier today.) But Dingy Harry is out there, they think that there’s good politics in this and blaming this whole thing on the Republicans, that it failed. ‘It’s a Republican bill. It’s the president’s bill! Democrats worked on this. We helped out, but it’s the Republicans’ bill.’ I think he’s so misreading this politically, but from his standpoint, whether he’s right or wrong on this, blaming it on the president and on Republicans, the failure, is good politics. I also think that they would love to split the Republican Party, which has already happened. The president has already done that. It creates an opportunity, a vacuum — and it also took out McCain for all intents and purposes.