RUSH: Here is Lance in Salt Lake City. Thank you for waiting, sir. It’s great to have you on the show.

CALLER: Good to be here. Thanks, Rush. I appreciate you taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I hoping you’re having a good day. First I’d like to say thank you so much for all you do — all you and your staff do — for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I think it’s really great. My wife, at the young age of 36, passed away 2-1/2 years ago after an 18-month battle with it.

RUSH: Ooh. My gosh. That’s too young.

CALLER: Yeah, too young. So I just wanted to thank you for that. But mainly the reason I called was I remember listening to you talk yesterday about how there’s no such thing as moderate liberals, and by no means am I a liberal or anything close to it. But one name popped into mind when you said that, and I was just wondering what your opinion is on Joe Lieberman, if you think he might be a moderate liberal.

RUSH: Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman. Look, what happened to Joe Lieberman.

CALLER: 9/11.

RUSH: Hmm?

CALLER: 9/11.

RUSH: No, no. No, no. With the Democrat Party, what happened to him?

CALLER: He was cast out.

RUSH: They threw him out.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: That tells me he was not a liberal. He might, in fact, have been a moderate. I know Joe Lieberman. In fact, Joe Lieberman had a great line. It was at the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation dinner one year, and I was not endorsing McCain. I was being very critical of John McCain. I guess that would have been, what, 2008? Whatever the hell year it was that he won the nomination, Kathryn and I went to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation Dinner.

We are seated at a table with former secretary of state James Baker and his wife Susan (who are, of course, huge McCain supporters, because they’re big party supporters) and a couple other people at the table. Lieberman is being given an award that night by the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, and he goes up to accept the award, and he says (paraphrased), “I can’t believe that this situation exists.

“I’m a Democrat. I know that Rush Limbaugh’s here. I’m endorsing John McCain, and he isn’t,” and James Baker and his wife Susan just looked at me and nodded their heads and pointed, as though to say, “See? See?” I said to myself, “Doesn’t this make my point? I mean, here Joe Lieberman is endorsing ‘my’ guy?” and then walking out I ran into Senator Lieberman and he said, “You and I, we’ve gotta talk. We really have to talk.” I’ve met him a couple times. I wouldn’t describe him as the kind of liberal that the Obama Democrat Party has become.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Joe Lieberman. You might remember that William F. Buckley Jr. despised Lowell Weicker, liberal Republican senator from Connecticut, and he liked Lieberman. So Buckley set up BuckPac. Buckley and the gang at National Review actually started a political action committee to elect Lieberman, and they succeeded. They got Lieberman some donations rather than Weicker. That’s not something… I mean, Buckley is not gonna do that for a hard-core leftist liberal.

He was trying to get rid of one who called himself a Republican. Lieberman is an old-school liberal. He doesn’t hate the country. Lieberman loves the country. He doesn’t think there’s anything unjust or immoral about the founding of country. He’s not of this current crop of Democrats. You remember he gave a speech for McCain at the 2008 Republican National Convention — and after he gave that speech, he was basically kicked out of the Democrat Party.

They no longer allowed him to attend any Democrat caucus leadership meetings or policy lunches or anything like that, and then they went out and found a candidate to run against Lieberman. Lieberman had to run as an independent in Connecticut. That’s how the Democrat “big tent” works: You better tow the party line, or you’re out of there. They’re not gonna put up with it. (interruption) What do you mean, “If only we could do that”? No, no. You totally misunderstand, Snerdley.

The Republicans have to show a big tent and allow all kinds of people in — even saboteurs — in order to show that we are “inclusive.”