RUSH: President Bush in Erie, Pennsylvania, last night said, ‘Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.’ He got huge cheers on that. ‘He weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba –‘ by the way, since so much of the media is now state-controlled and state-run, I just need to say for the record that I am not on the government payroll. ‘– his administration’s interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama’s decision to ban ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ such as waterboarding, which the current president has called ‘off course’ and ‘based on fear.’
‘The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again,” and he also said that ‘I’m not going to criticize my successor,’ and then he did. ‘I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that — persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.’ So he’s fighting back here, and I really like this. I wish this administration — we can wish and wish and wish and it won’t change anything. It woulda just been fine if they had done a little bit more of this while President Bush was in office.