RUSH: I ask again, how is it that I cannot be the legitimate TIME Magazine Man of the Year? New Yorkers, New York liberal Democrats, are livid. They are outraged over the decision by Governor Spitzer to pull his driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants plan. First up, Charlie Rangel at the Spitzer press conference.
RANGEL: There is no question that nobody’s thinking about identifying, deporting, jailing these people. They are part of our economy; they are part of what America was supposed to be and will continue to be. But, somehow, for political reasons, we’ve been able to stigmatize to such a degree that those who challenge the system are being called unpatriotic. There’s no question that we lack the leadership on the national level to change the tone.
RUSH: You know, Charlie, I tell you, ‘lack the leadership on the national level to change the tone’? It seems to me that we have a president who tried to change the tone with you people, and when he tried to change the tone with you people, all you did was stomp on him. He led this issue, Charlie. You Democrats stood on the sidelines letting the president take the bullets on this from the American people. You didn’t want to get involved because you wanted the Republican Party divided over this. Now that it’s boomeranged, as almost everything’s done lately on the Democrat side, now, all of a sudden, you’re absent leadership on this? What about Senator Clinton? What about Senator Schumer? What about you? What about President Bush? Where were you joining him on this, Charlie, if it’s so important?
If these people are the backbone of America — and, by the way, that’s a stretch. Immigrants to America have never been illegal, the backbone of the country, the melting pot. These comments that these guys are making make it clear, do they not, that this is purely a political partisan issue to them. It is those guys who are making this political. They are making it partisan. Those of us who oppose all of this are simply standing for the rule of law, and American tradition; American exceptionalism. Charlie Rangel, Spitzer, Hillary Clinton, any number of Democrats, are doing just the opposite. They’re willing to wreck the country’s foundations, traditions, and institutions regardless, as long as it gives them more voters and a greater chance to win elections. Now, Gary Ackerman, a congressman from New York, also at the Spitzer press conference today, and he loses it a little.
ACKERMAN: This might not have been the exact right plan, but the governor is on to something, and that is that we have to really be attentive and try to solve this problem. Those people who just want to use the jingoistic terms that are popular, round ’em all up, put ’em on planes and send ’em home, I challenge them. Call the immigration commissioner of this country, tell ’em that you’ve just caught an illegal immigrant, and you have ’em hog-tied here right in front of the US capitol, come and collect ’em, and I guarantee you no one is going to show up because they don’t know what to do with them, and that’s the problem.
RUSH: Well, you guys are the ones in Congress, for crying out loud, Ackerman, Rangel, all these people are in Congress, and you’re blaming who? It’s like you guys are spectators? You’re just standing around watching all this? You have no impact on it? You coulda done any number of things about this. By the way, who is it that these people are referring to when they keep talking about rounding ’em up and flying ’em home on airplanes? Nobody was ever talking about deportation. We were talking about border security first. Get that done and stop the flow. Then we’ll deal with the problem of the 12 to 20, whatever millions are here. But if you don’t do the border first, then nobody is going to take anybody seriously on this issue because we’ve been here and done that, 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act. I don’t want to relive all this, but I’ll tell you what, it’s going to be an issue that will be predominant throughout the presidential campaign. And it’s about time. This issue should have always been part of the presidential campaign, and now it is.
To the phones, Minneapolis, this is Mick. Nice to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, mega dittos. It’s great to talk to you now in wonderful FM stereo.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Okay, listen, I want to make a prediction on what’s going to happen tomorrow night on this debate, though, and I think it goes to the second part of your monologue about why Republicans need to slam-dunk it. If you heard what Hillary said in the second part of her excuse, you are going to hear tomorrow night every Democrat on that stage, you’re going to hear talking points from every Democrat mayor of every city try to throw this back at George Bush by saying, ‘Look, the reason why this is a crisis is because we’re not enforcing our borders. The reason why these governors have to make these tough decisions is because every state is being flooded with people. It’s the federal government avoiding their responsibility.’ Now, it’s probably wrong, it’s an excuse, but you mark my words, you’re going to hear that from everybody on that stage tomorrow night, including Hillary. And my question for you is, because Bush was soft on the borders, and you pointed that out very well for the last year, what Republican candidate — certainly I don’t think Giuliani — is the best to lead this fight and make it a real slam-dunk that you’re talking about? Because they’re going to throw it back at Bush. And that’s my question.
RUSH: Well, let ’em throw it back at Bush. Bush isn’t on the ballot. I hope they do keep focusing on Bush. I hope they do try to convince every Democrat voter that’s going to go to the polls next November they’re going to see Bush’s name on the ballot. If they blame it on Bush, that will work to our benefit, too, because the blame is going to come off as whining and moaning. The thing about Bush, he stood up for his beliefs. A lot of people disagreed with him. He fought for what he wanted. He did not stay on the sidelines like all these Democrats did, and he’s not blaming anybody else for the failure of what he wanted to become law, this amnesty bill, he’s not blaming anybody else, he just realizes it can’t be done now because of American sentiment. So, as to which specific Republican candidate best carries the immigration issue, I’m only familiar with a couple. I know Romney talks tough on it, but I’m not sure about the others. That’s actually a good question. It shouldn’t matter right now.
All the Republican candidate has to do is have ears and the ability to read recent history, like the last six months, and they will be guided as to what to do to win on this issue. It’s not complicated. Solving the issue is going to be complicated, well, that isn’t even really going to be the case. But we don’t need to keep trying what has failed over and over again. Let the Democrats whine. Let ’em blame the federal government. Let ’em blame George W. Bush. That’s going to come across as whining, cowering in fear, shirking responsibility. But you better believe this. This issue, taken off the table by Spitzer, not because he doesn’t want it to pass, not because he doesn’t think he can get it to pass, this is off the table because it cannot be mentioned as a prominent still ongoing issue tomorrow night in the debate for Hillary to muff again. It had to be taken off the table. The momentum on this issue is always going to be with the Republicans. The Democrats and the Drive-Bys, a unit here operating together, it’s tough to say they don’t get it, because it doesn’t matter to them. They’re going to try to do what they want to do regardless what the American public wants and in whatever numbers.
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RUSH: Kevin in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it’s great to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’m a former New York City resident, and Eliot Spitzer, and Michael Bloomberg, and Chuck Schumer are always the first to demand the lion’s share of the homeland security funding, yet they don’t do anything fighting illegal immigration, which is the biggest threat to national security. If there’s any city or police department in the country that could help fight it, it’s the 30,000-member New York City Police Department.
RUSH: Did you hear the sound bite that I played moments ago from Spitzer talking about this?
CALLER: Yes, I did, and that’s the reason why I called. And, you know, they blame President Bush — which, again, part of the blame is his, as far as the federal government — but the New York City police department has 30,000 members, and they’re told not to challenge somebody’s immigration status. So, you know, I can’t figure it out. There’s enough blame for everybody to go around, but they need to take some of the blame as well.
RUSH: Look, when they say, the Democrats say, ‘There was no leadership at the national level.’ Well, there was. There was all kinds of leadership. The leadership was to do it in quiet, in private, in the dark, so the public didn’t know about it. That was ‘leadership.’ They tried to get it done. What stopped ’em was an informed public. An informed public stopped ’em! Any time a leader is trying to go against that kind of informed number of people, that leader is making a huge mistake. There’s nobody that could have led a botched bill past this number of informed people! It couldn’t have happened!
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RUSH: Binghamton, New York. Richard, I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yes. Thank you, Rush. This driver’s license thing is definitely not dead, not by a long shot. New York state has about 18 million residents. Now, I happen to live in a population island, if you really stretch it, a quarter of a million. The entire upstate area is dotted with Gannett-owned newspapers. They own about a hundred newspapers. Most of your listeners would probably recognize that wonderful name USA Today. But, lucky us, we got one of those here. And the headline in the paper today was, ‘Spitzer to Drop License Policy.’ Well, the second he came up with that in late September, the polls came out, and Eliot the Arrogant has been ignoring it for a long time. Now, in that organization is liberals, which I’ve always considered to be an acronym, meaning Lazy Intellect Buggers Evading Reality and Always Lying Shamelessly, but the article quoted him, and here’s the quote: ‘You don’t need to read the polls to understand that this is an issue that has touched a nerve, and so we’re attempting to address this in a thoughtful, modulated way, and then we’ll see where we go.’ So, obviously it’s going on to the back burner. But he also spoke with a New York congressional delegation. Nobody knows what he said. The national news is reporting, ‘Hey, this is dead.’ I don’t think so. I think this was just a trial balloon for the old Statue of Liberty play. You know, what you’re really seeing is a back-door attempt to do an immigration reform act — otherwise known as an illegal voter registration act — and it’s going to come back.
RUSH: Well, he said so. I mentioned this in the first hour. We had an audio sound bite of him saying it. ‘The issue does not disappear. The issue will not be gone tomorrow or next week in the absence of federal legislation.’ We know it’s not going away, just like when the big comprehensive amnesty bill went down the tubes, they came back a short time later with a new piece of legislation called the (dreamily) ‘Dreeeeeeaem Act,’ and it was just a smaller portion of the whole comprehensive bill. Universal health care, they haven’t given up on that. The liberals don’t give up on anything! They just find new ways to get it done without people who oppose it, knowing. They are sneaky. Their motto: ‘How can we fool ’em today?’ Of course, this is not going away. This is why you can’t ever give up in fighting these people