RUSH: So yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, I made the point here that in a manner of speaking, we’re winning. We are stopping the Democrats from accomplishing anything. Now, that’s winning. We’re not advancing much, because we’re not in the majority, but we’re stopping ’em. We’re stopping them on everything. A lot of people on our side still have this tendency to look at things from the pessimistic side, the doom-and-gloom side, and from a position of being on defense, and it’s time to — without being fraudulently optimistic, being on defense all the time never gets anybody anywhere. You gotta have the ball at some point; you gotta move it downfield. To illustrate the failure, you just have to go through the New York Times today. Here’s a story: ‘Democrats Look Ahead as Veto Override Falters — With little expectation of overriding President Bush’s veto, Democrats in Congress said Wednesday that they would pass a new bill to provide health insurance for 10 million children, but were willing to tweak it to address some White House concerns.’ What do you mean, they’re ‘willing to tweak it’? They lost this. The president has vetoed their bill, and they don’t have the votes to override it. ‘Many Republicans argue that the vetoed bill would allow coverage of children from middle- and upper-income families and of adults and some illegal immigrants. Democrats reject such criticism, but say they will consider revising the bill to make its restrictions and prohibitions clearer.’
Really? They have no choice, ladies and gentlemen, if they want the bill. They’ve just been told that their way is not going to happen. The Republicans are holding on this. They’re going to make it a little clearer that this will not apply to middle-class and upper-class children. In fact, there’s a great quote here from Dingy Harry himself. In the Senate, ‘he might be willing to ‘tweak something’ in the bill to help the president ‘save face.” Now, that is just laughable. That’s hilarious. Save face? Save face? Senator Reid, do you understand, it is you who needs to come up with something fast to save face. The president has just skunked you again, and the Republicans have just beaten you back again. ‘We’re going to help the president save face on this.’ They’re really concerned here that the president’s going to look bad in the eyes of parents who have children who may not be covered by this, and so the Democrats want to make sure the president saves face — and, of course, the Drive-Bys report this without even one tinge of incredulity. Then the next story… Oh, by the way, latest CBS News poll released yesterday found overwhelming support for expansion of the program to include some middle-class, uninsured children. This flies in the face of the USA Today/Gallup poll we had earlier in the week which says just the opposite.
Now, which poll are we gonna believe? You know these elected officials run and rule their lives with polls. If this CBS poll were accurate, the president’s veto would be overridden, because they would interpret the poll as meaning that’s what the American people want. They could throw this poll out. This is the Los Angeles Times: ‘Democrats Put Heat on Pelosi Over Genocide Bill.’ A supreme failure of congressional leadership. Jack Murtha says to Pelosi, ‘You’ve miscalculated your support on this,’ and the Democrats are clueless on the merits of it when they signed it.
Now, ‘top Democrats are leaning on Pelosi.’ Murtha ‘said party leaders miscalculated support for the measure.’ Of course, they did! They hold average people in contempt. They do not yet understand that most Americans don’t want to lose the war in Iraq. When Americans found out that this genocide resolution against Turkey was going to have a negative impact on US military personnel in combat, they let Washington know about it. That’s what Murtha’s talking about: We miscalculated this. ‘ Murtha said that a number of lawmakers who signed on as cosponsors ‘didn’t have a clue what it was all about.’ Then yesterday in his press conference, the president accused the Democrats of achieving little on Capitol Hill. He threw down the gauntlet to Pelosi and Reid. Remember, this guy is the lame duck.
He said, ‘You haven’t done squat.’ He didn’t use those words. He said, ‘You haven’t done squat,’ and, you know, Pelosi is just livid about this. She claims the president’s being ‘partisan,’ and just making all kinds of mistakes on this. Here’s another story in the LA Times: ‘Chill Cast on US-Russia Relations.’ Once again, Bush rubbed the Democrats’ noses in the Iraq war debate that they lost recently. He said, ‘Well, we’ve found some common ground,’ and Pelosi seethed! You know, Bush is throwing out this olive branch, and Pelosi seethes over the notion that they’ve found common ground. She ‘called Bush’s attack ‘partisan.’ This is an example of the president claiming to seek common ground at the same time he’s bitterly attacking Congress.” This is surreal. And then back to the Washington Post: ‘Senate and Bush Agree on Terms of Spying Bill.’ The Democrats have totally collapsed on the FISA Bill. The ACLU, on page three, is calling what happened to the Democrats ‘a total meltdown. … The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats’ bill and an embarrassment for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had pushed the measure’s passage.’ Everything they are trying is falling apart. Everything. They have done nothing. It is they who need to ‘save face.’ We’ve got a little montage here of the Drive-Bys just beside themselves over the Democrats’ inability to get anything done.
ROBACH: (music) It happened with war legislation, and now it looks like it will happen again with children’s health care. The president takes a stand, the Democrats promise a fight, but in the end, the president comes out on top.
FOREMAN: (music) Democrats at several levels of government are stumbling.
CUOMO: Democrats appear headed for defeat in the battle over expanding children’s health insurance.
HUME: This looks like kind of an embarrassing defeat for the leadership
BLITZER: House Democrats may be losing yet another battle, this one over domestic spying.
YELLIN: Republicans are crowing and Democrats are trying to figure out what to do next.
BASH: A rebellion among Pelosi’s own Democrats…
FRANKEN: Such a political debacle for the Democrats…
COURIC: Why aren’t these things getting done?
CAFFERTY: You know, Ray Charles could have seen that was a stupid idea from the beginning. You’re just doing a great job, Pelosi. Terrific.
RUSH: That was Jack what his name, Cafferty, on CNN. You heard Katie Couric and a bunch of others in there. So we’re winning. We’re stopping these guys from their ridiculous pieces of legislation, and the Drive-Bys are getting real frustrated with them right along with the fringe lunatics that are in their base.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Continuing with audio sound bites, you just heard the media montage of the Drive-Bys frustrated as all get out. You see now, you have to understand that in the Drive-By universe (and I’m sure you understand this) what Democrats do — where they succeed, where they fail — is the total narrative. The fact that they can’t get anything done is not a reflection on Bush, as far as the Drive-Bys are concerned. It’s not a reflection on the House or Senate Republicans. It’s a reflection on the Democrats. ‘Why can’t they get anything done?’ When the Democrats lose elections, for the next two years all we hear about in the Drive-By Media is, ‘What do the Democrats have to do to get control of the House back? What do they have to do to win the White House?’ As though the norm, the standard operating procedure, is Democrats running everything. It’s hilarious to watch this. I’ll tell you what else is bothering the Drive-Bys, is they’re helping out every bit they can. The Democrats come out with these bills like S-CHIP and the Armenian thing, and then they come out with FISA, and the Drive-Bys just get right in line, and they take up what the Democrats want to do, whatever it is. Spoiling the economy in people’s minds… Speaking of which, on their blog site today, their political ticker, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll on Thursday morning, today, said, ‘Nearly half of Americans think the US economy is in a recession. Close to 46% of those surveyed say that,’ in a recession. ‘Fifty-one percent of those questioned say no.’ So they’re doing a pretty good job there of creating this image in the public mind that the economy is about to fall apart, and, of course, the Democrat presidential candidates are doing their bit, too. The Breck Girl and Mrs. Clinton out there with their (whining), ‘Some people are just one pink slip away from bankruptcy and from losing their homes. It’s horrible. Only we can fix it, because we are agents of change, Mr. Limbaugh,’ but they can’t change anything. They can’t get anything done, and the Drive-Bys have been helping them. And the frustration continued on the Joe Scarborough program this morning on MSNBC. Co-host Willie Geist said this about Dingy Harry and his letter.
GEIST: Do you know what I hear people say out there? They say, ‘Spend a little less time talking about how Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict on the Senate floor, spend less time talking about genocide in Armenia almost a hundred years ago, and address the problems you were elected to address.’
RUSH: (laughing) The problem that they think they were elected to address was to get us out of Iraq, and they’ve tried that 55 times, Willie. I don’t know what to tell you here. They’ve been trying to address some of these problems. But really what they’re totally oriented around is destroying George Bush, still. That’s where they’re headed. You know, somebody advanced this theory the other day, and I, frankly, hadn’t considered it. It may be true. Everybody is trying to explain the literal derangement that exists on the left side of the aisle in this country with the Democrats. Thirty-five percent of the Democrats think that the president ‘knew about 9/11’ before it happened, and thus they have to think he let it happen. One-in-five Democrats think the world would be better if we lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror. We have chronicled over many, many moons here the literal insanity and lunatic nature of the Democrat base. How can this happen? What in the world could have gotten these people so riled up? And most people go back to the Florida aftermath, and then the ’94 House elections where they lost their power and so forth, and all that.
But a lot of people — ‘a lot’ — a couple people have expressed to me, ‘You know who’s really responsible for this is Hillary Clinton.’ After the Monica Lewinsky things she goes on the Today Show and she starts talking about this ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’ and we all laughed about it, but it’s the theory of some people I know that this kook fringe base just lapped it up and licked it up and thought, ‘Yeah! That has to explain all of this, stealing votes, doing all this, going to Iraq, lying to the country.’ She goes up there on the Today show with Matt Lauer and says, ‘Yeah, there’s this vast right-wing conspiracy out to get my husband,’ as though the vast right-wing conspiracy found a way to hire Monica Lewinsky — and then make sure that a pizza was delivered to the Oval Office when she happened to be there, and then the right-wing conspiracy made sure that we kept that blue stained dress. But your theory is as good as mine or anybody else’s. But the fact is, they are deranged. They literally are, and they’re focused on destroying Bush, and the Democrats in Washington are the same way. Now, here’s Murtha. We continue on with the theme of Democrats in disarray. Yesterday at a Capitol Hill press conference, he just cuts the legs out of Pelosi.
MURTHA: I must have had 25, 30 members, Democrats, come to me yesterday and say, you know…very agitated about this coming to the floor right now, they — they have gotten the message. So I would say if we were to run today, wouldn’t pass. She feels morally committed to this issue. It’s just that, uh, uh, uh, it’s impractical at this point to — to go forward with it.
RUSH: Why is that, Congressman Murtha? Why is it ‘impractical…to go forward’? Is it just because it can’t pass, or is it because some of you Democrats finally figured out exactly what this bill was, or was it because you got bombarded with phone calls and e-mails again from people who saw what you were trying to do — and that is, undercut victory in the Iraq war? Murtha then continued.
MURTHA: We need every ally we can get. They’re important to on our effort in Iraq. We got 160,000 troops in Iraq. This is important to the US effort in Iraq. Period.
RUSH: Well, hallelujah! We finally got a little truth here. Murtha says, ‘We got 160,000 troops there. We need every ally we can get.’ We don’t need to go running them off. That’s exactly what the Democrats wanted to do. Now, I made the statement the other day that there had to be some adults in there somewhere that realized this was going to destroy them even more than they already are destroyed, or damage them even more than they’re damaged — and Murtha’s comment here tends to indicate that I, once again, was right about that. Here’s Pelosi. This is what she said yesterday after it became clear that the Turkey-Armenia resolution had fallen short.
PELOSI: Whether it will come up or not or, what the reaction will be, remains to be seen.
RUSH: Right. Well, just three days before that she was on Stephanopoulos’ show and said this.
PELOSI: I said if the — if it passed the committee, that we would bring it to the floor.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, it passed the committee, and you didn’t get it to the floor, and everything that they have tried has just been an abysmal failure. Now Pelosi is starting to shoot arrows over at Dingy Harry because he can’t get anything done over there. It was like the House, I think, that had to pull their — yep. ‘House Democrat leaders had to pull a competing version of the FISA bill from the House floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and Republican parliamentary maneuvers.’ So while Pelosi is aiming at Dingy Harry and blaming him, her bill was so pathetic and so utterly without a chance, that she had to pull it. So they are in disarray, and we all know why they’re in disarray, because the things that they’re attempting to do are not right. Just in a decent world sense, right versus wrong, the things they’re trying to do are wrong. They are harmful if they were to pass, damaging and harmful to this country’s national security. So it’s poetic justice here. I’ll grab a quick phone call here.
RUSH: Sean in San Jose, California. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush? It’s a real honor to talk to you. Longtime listener. I’m both a Republican and an Armenian-American, and I’m basically pissed a little bit at the Turkish government, but also the Democrats. Some people might find that surprising, but, you know, the Turkish government is never going to admit that the genocide happened. It was a long time ago. But I think the Democrats are kind of acting… They’re appealing to the Armenians, most of whom are — most Armenians are very — we’re Christians. We’re conservatives. We don’t share the Democratic values. I think this is another case of them trying to angle for votes, you know, push a cause, and just front, and try and disrupt the war on terror. I kinda… It’s clear for everybody to see, and it’s just something that from day one, when this got brought up and the Democrats and Pelosi were doing it, you could just tell that it was just a front, and it broke my heart.
RUSH: Exactly. I don’t even think it was about votes yet. I think this was all about… Remember, they are still getting hammered behind the scenes, and in phone calls, and so forth from their wacko base. ‘Get out of Iraq! That’s what you promised!’ They’re getting hassled and hammered about that all the time, and this was an attempt to destroy a relationship with an ally. As far as getting into the Armenian vote, I don’t think they’re even thinking about that right now. I think they’re singularly focused on destroying this presidency. Hell, folks! I got this thing that’s from a blog. It’s ProteinWisdom.com. There was ‘a meeting of anti-war activists in Los Angeles on Sunday: Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-Culver City) spoke in front of an audience of some 150 activists from various LA antiwar organizations at an Iraq Town Hall meeting in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 14th hosted by California Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass and the 47th Assembly District People’s Council at Hamilton High School. The audience,’ according to an eyewitness who was there, ‘responded angrily when Watson responded to a call for the impeachment of President Bush by saying, ‘We simply don’t have the votes.” So this anti-war group is pressuring a big lib, Diane Watson, to move forward with impeachment. ”We simply don’t have the votes.’ After groans and boos and at least one cry of ‘At least do something!”
‘Watson went on to say, ‘Right now, Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi is working very quietly and very effectively, behind the scenes. We need 285 votes to uphold an impeachment, and so far we have 260 members telling us they support impeachment.” Now, if Congresswoman Watson was telling the truth to these activists, these anti-war kooks, then the question is raised of Pelosi’s control over her own delegation — and even her awareness of what’s going on in her own party. I mean, does Pelosi know that Diane Watson’s out there revealing what Pelosi’s working on ‘in secret, very quietly, very effectively behind the scenes.’ If this is the case, if Diane Watson’s telling the truth, this means that Nancy Pelosi’s not leveling with the American people. Because everybody in the Democrat Party when impeachment comes up, ‘Oh, no, no. We don’t have the votes.’ They don’t have the time, either. You think anybody’s going to pay attention to an impeachment? Nobody wants to impeach Bush, except these wackos. But the presidential campaign is going to be getting underway in full speed in not too long. They don’t have the time; they don’t have the votes. So who’s telling the truth here? Diane Watson, did she just say this to get these wackos off her back or is it actually the truth, and Pelosi is… Well, she can’t be working effectively on this because she’s not working effectively on anything!