RUSH: “Former President Clinton on Monday compared Republican criticism of his wife’s position on driver’s license for illegal immigrants to the ads that helped sink John Kerry’s White House hopes in 2004. Tim Russert’s question and the Republican reaction is the equivalent of Mrs. Clinton being swiftboated.” He was talking to the American Postal Workers Union at a convention, and he said, (doing Clinton impression) “I had the feeling at the end of that debate that we’re about to get into cutesy land again. But I gotta tell you something. It’s fine for Hillary and all the other Democrats to discuss Governor Spitzer’s plan, but not in 30 seconds. You can’t do this in sound bites. It’s just too complicated for sound bites. You can’t explain this in sound bites.” So here is Mrs. Clinton’s husband running to the rescue once again to try to bail her out. There’s nothing to explain in a sound bite or not. She flip-flopped on the answer and she ended up blowing it big time by saying we should have passed the amnesty bill! Driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, 77% of the public oppose it. I have it here in the stack, ladies and gentlemen.
This is one of these issues, immigration — here’s the story in the Chicago Sun-Times, by Steve Huntley: “3 Events of Past Week Give Democrats a Reason to Worry — First, Hillary Clinton had a bad night in the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. She was defensive, cold and harsh-sounding, mouthed position papers, and gave muddling, confusing and contradictory answers to questions, in effect trying to take both sides of an issue. That cold, calculating, triangulating image is the reason she has high negatives.” Can we talk about immigration? It’s a huge, huge reason Democrats ought to be worrying.
The second reason Steve Huntley gives is “Barack Obama laid out his foreign policy views toward Iran in an interview with the New York Times,” and said he’d have an open relationship with them. This is not cool. And the third reason, “last week’s report on war casualties showed that the news from Iraq is turning positive.” Iraq’s going well, Obama is an appeaser to Iran, and Hillary’s biggest vulnerability from the debate was her attitude and her character. Three events the past week give Democrats reason to worry. Well, let’s add two more. Their position on climate change is a deadly one once people find out what it’s going to cost ’em, and Mrs. Clinton’s made it clear where Democrats are on illegal immigration.
When you have 77% of the people in the country opposing illegal immigration and driver’s licenses for illegals, you can flip-flop all day long, and you’re not going to get your tail out of the hot wax. Clinton can come along and say “hey, you know, it’s too complicated. You can’t put this in a sound bite. You can’t sound bite that answer. You people aren’t nuanced enough to understand this like we do.” That isn’t going to sell with anybody. Tell people they’re stupid? That’s really a way to win ’em over. “It’s too complicated for you to understand. I would love explain it to you, but…” it’s not complicated at all. They’re trying to make it complicated because they’re trying to get themselves out of the excrement.
I think these people are just starting to realize here that there is a problem that this woman has when she is forced to answer substantive questions to which slogans and pandering will not work. Then in Cedar Rapids, they’re all out in Iowa getting ready for the Hawkeye Cauci. “The battle against global warming means big economic opportunities as well as challenges for the U.S., Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday, touting her energy proposals as she campaigned in Iowa. ‘For this generation, climate change is our space race,’ said Clinton, speaking in a cavernous factory with giant wind turbines in the background.”
Get this. She said, “Global warming hits particularly hard at the poor. One in four low-income families have already missed a mortgage or rent payment because of rising energy costs.” Global warming. She has just linked the mortgage credit crisis to global warming, ladies and gentlemen. Does she think we are this stupid? Yes. Then here’s a headline. This is from the Chicago Sun-Times: “Obama Turns Up Heat as He Targets Hillary — With her lead so strong, he decides he has to get tougher.” This guy is so milquetoast, he couldn’t turn up the heat on a teapot, folks, we found that at the debate the other night. The guy couldn’t turn up the heat on an outdoor campfire if somebody showed him the gauge.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Washington Times today, Rasmussen Report: “Voters oppose driver’s licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin. As immigration politics explode into the presidential race…” By the way, can you remember when we were debating the amnesty bill way back when in the summer, and the proponents were worried, “We’ve gotta get this done fast! We gotta get this done fast! We can’t let normal politics get in the way of this. We’ve gotta get this done fast to solve the problem,” because they wanted to keep it out of any reelection campaign. Do you remember me saying back then, “This is the kind of issue that needs to be in the presidential debate, in the presidential campaign. We need our future president candidates to be telling us what they think about this,” and,
So I’m reading and I’m shouting at the paper, “Ask her! You are a reporter!” And, lo and behold, the next night the debate, it came up, and all hell has broken loose since, and the Democrats and the media express shock and dismay that illegal immigration is such a stridently, strong issue out there. You have people like E.J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post saying, (paraphrasing) “Yeah, it sounds like everybody cares about it, but it isn’t. It’s a really small bunch of people, but they are very, very loud.” Tell me, E.J., with the still monopolistic or near-monopolistic control over the left-wing Drive-By Media, how is it that these voices you consider to be so small in number manage to be heard in such great number by our elected officials in Washington? See, this is how libs lie to themselves. Illegal immigration to the inside-the-Beltway bunch — the Washington, New York, Boston corridor, the axis, Northeastern elites — why, they firmly believe, “Why, people in here, great American tradition, immigration, blah, blah, blah, can’t be racists. We can’t be nativists and so forth.” So they think their view is the dominant view, or should be, and so anybody outside the Beltway that doesn’t subscribe, “Ah, they’re just a bunch of rednecks, a real loud, small number of people.”
How could their voices be so heard when you have done so much in the Drive-Bys to squelch them? “Seventy-seven percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver’s licenses available to illegal aliens, while just 16 percent supported the idea.” It doesn’t matter if you ask ’em, “Well, should it be because of security?” Like here in The Politico, a little story by Roger Simon: “‘Legal or Not, Immigrants Must Drive.’ You probably can make a good argument for giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. And you probably can make a good argument against it. But you can’t make both arguments at the same time. And you can’t explain either in 30 seconds.” Whoa! We just had Bill Clinton say, (Clinton impression) “You know, Limbaugh, this is not a sound bite issue, and you can’t explain this in sound bites.” You know, “It’s not a sound bite,” is itself a sound bite! So Roger Simon has picked up that theme. You can’t explain either in 30 seconds, and you go to the page two of his story, and you get this.
Bruce Morrison, immigration expert: “It is a very difficult problem with no simple answer. So when it comes to solving the problem, we take to our respective corners and call each other names. This is politics in the 21st century.” It’s just too complicated to explain it! Well, why do they have to drive? I’ll tell you why they have to drive: so Democrats can register them to vote! That’s it. That is what it’s all about. Anyway, you probably think I’ve lost my place. The point is, we got this issue out, and it is now part of the presidential race, where it should be, and it’s going to be quite telling to see how the Democrat candidates go on this, because it’s out there. It’s just waiting for them to trip over time and time again.
• AP: Clinton Sees Opportunity in Climate Woes
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