President Bush and the Border Guard Case

RUSH: Here’s Alan in Manhattan. I’m glad you called, sir, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Howdy.

RUSH: Howdy.

CALLER: I’ve been listening since 1990. This is my second time getting through. I love this. Before 1990, I was a long-haired hippie liberal, and I voted Republican for the first time in 2000 and haven’t looked back. But I’m very disappointed in George Bush as pertaining to Compean and Ramos. I feel betrayed, I feel angry every day about these guys and I’d like to know what your explanation is, because you’re always a big defender of George Bush, saying that he does what he does because he thinks it’s best for the country. I don’t see any way that keeping these poor suckers locked up is good for the country.

RUSH: First place, I appreciate your kind words. Number two, when it comes to the immigration issue, I have never been on board with the White House on this, and it has provided some moments of friction. I have not been on board. I don’t understand this border guard thing, especially why they’re still in jail. I’ve talked to some US attorneys about this case who agree with you and me on the whole immigration thing. Now, the US attorney community is a close-knit bunch. They’re tight with law enforcement in the federal government. We’re talking here about border guards and so forth. But in this case we’re talking about a US attorney or two that I know, because I asked him, ‘What is this about? What’s in the media, and that’s out there on all these blogs, if it’s too much to decipher, tell me the legalities of this.’ Now, I’ll tell you what he said, but you have to understand US attorneys hang together. It was a US attorney that tried this case —

CALLER: But isn’t that just a form of having your hands dirty? Hanging together regardless?

RUSH: No, I haven’t explained it to you yet.

CALLER: Okay. Go ahead. I’m sorry.

RUSH: I don’t remember the details, but he told me that the US attorney that tried this case was right. He had the evidence on his side, the law was the law, the law was broken in this case, and the US attorney had no choice. Now, I have to take what he says. He’s a friend of mine, he didn’t lie to me. Sometimes I think he’s wrong on things, but not very often. I have to take that and I have to say, ‘Okay, I’m not an attorney, and I don’t know this law like he does.’ And I specifically asked him to look at it. So in the situation like this, I have to take the emotion out of this. You know, it would be easy to say, those guys went to jail and were tried in the midst of the immigration debate because Republicans wanted to show the Hispanic community that we can be tough, because everybody thought that during the immigration debate, both parties were making a play for the Hispanic vote. So it would be easy for me to emotionally say, ‘Well, obviously, these guys are a couple of pawns so that the Hispanic community can see that the Republicans, too, they’re going to get tough,’ but I have to throw that out because this has been explained to me, the case was properly tried, and it was properly charged.

CALLER: I appreciate the explanation, but, Rush, I have heard people as luminary as Duncan Hunter and Mike Huckabee both say that this drug dealer they shot was given immunity, and while the trial was going on, he continued to run drugs, but that wasn’t told to the jury.

RUSH: Look, I’m as conflicted by it as you are. Bottom line is I don’t have an explanation for you, but you’re not going to get me to defend the president on this. I’m with you. Some of this stuff is repugnant. I think what happened to Scooter Libby is repugnant.

CALLER: If George Bush has it within his purview to do something about this, and I’ve always thought of him as a fair-minded man, and, you know, even if they were found guilty —

RUSH: If he’s going to do something about it, Alan, the timing for it will be at the end of the year or the end of his term when it comes time for the usual presidential pardons. The Scooter Libby thing was really, really rare, because of the timing. But all he did was commute the sentence; he didn’t get rid of the conviction. He may do that later in a pardon.