I’m pleased, but I am stunned at how little these people have actually learned. Harry Reid launched the first preemptive attack on any Social Security reform today and at the same time declared war on Clarence Thomas. So what we have here, the oldest liberal playbook in the world or the oldest page from the playbook: Wall Street versus the people. Harry Reid suggesting that ‘Wall Street fat cats’ will be the only one’s that will benefit from Social Security reform. It’s the same old class welfare, class envy business. It’s not a new page of the playbook, but it’s certainly not as old as the playbook itself but it’s been around a while, and that is conservative blacks are inept, à la Clarence Thomas. So let’s go to the audio sound bites, shall we, from Meet the Press yesterday and Tim Russert talked to the incoming Senate minority leader, Harry Reid. The first question: ‘Were a lot of eyebrows raised across the town when the Los Angeles Review Journal and the Hill newspaper reported that Harry Reid, the incoming Senate minority leader, said he’s forming a communications, quote, ‘war room’ to promote Democratic messages and respond to Republican criticism. Is creating a war room the prescription to try to solve the partisan problems we face right now, Senator Reed?’
REID: Well, I think war room designation is something that comes from inside Washington. What I created is a communications center where we’re going to take some of the resources that are already there and make sure that when someone comes to the Senate floor to give a speech, that talk radio stations know what that person had to say.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Harry, I already do that. Harry (Laughing), I already do that, sir. You don’t need any communications from you to facilitate what we already do. You know, if you listen to the rest of the bite, it’s clear he doesn’t think their message is getting out.
REID: — communicate with the American people to make sure that they understand the Democrats are in tune with millions of Americans across the country. In fact, we represent the people of this country, and this communications center that we have will certainly be an education how we feel.
RUSH: Harry, if you go through my Stack of Stuff here and look at all the pieces written by these armchair psychiatrists in the press suggesting what the Democrats have to do to get back into power, they would disagree profoundly with you when you say you represent the people of the country. You represent fewer and fewer people of the country, and your effort to get back power? You know what holds the Democrats back? Let me really tell you. We could go waxing eloquent on this for hours on end. Do you know what the one thing stopping the Democrats from getting in tune with the people of this country is? There’s one thing. It’s this little word morality. ‘Why are they so concerned about values?’ Even though that may not have been #1 they think it’s #1, and I told you why, because they want to be able to position themselves as more enlightened than you hayseed hicks in the red states, but the dirty little secret here is that when they’re upset about values and morality and then they start talking in the same breath about having to change, well, you can’t change.
I mean, you can change what you say, and they’re still focused on that: ‘What do we say? How do you we it?’ In fact, they’ve got a big piece they’re all excited about. The Dems are all excited about this Berkeley professor who’s got a book out, how Bush bamboozled them with words and how they’ve got to change various terms or various words. They’re still focused on what they have to say in order to get people to like them more or to understand them. It’s not about what you say, Harry; it’s about who you are and that’s your problem. When you will take a very loud, vociferous stand opposed to morality and you do that from issue to issue to issue, you have no chance of making changes to where you’re going to be in tune with the vast majority of the American people. You’re going to sit there and support people who want Christ out of Christmas, who want nativity scenes out of Christmas, who want nothing of religion in any aspect of American political life. You can say all you want and you can change how you say it, and you can come up with new ways to fool people but you’re never, ever going to represent real people when you’re gonna sit there and make fun of other people, particularly Catholics and Christians’ religious beliefs.
When you’re going to mock ’em and when you’re going to impugn them and when you’re going to try to lie to them that you, too, believe the same thing, but all we’ve got to do is watch your actions and those of your supporters to know that you’re just mouthing words; you’re not really being sincere. So they can talk about changing all they want; they can talk about putting up a ‘war room;’ they can talk about disseminating the words of Democrats on the floor of the Senate. We already do that as well as anybody ever has on this program. So you’re always going to be lagging in that area.
If you want to say you’re in tune with the people of the country, go put that group of people that you’re in tune with on television and let’s see the face of the Democratic Party, let’s just see ’em. I want to see who you think you’re in tune with, and then I want to see somebody from a red state drive by in a pickup and I want to see you act friendly. I mean, it ain’t going to happen. I’m sorry, it isn’t going to happen. As long as as they’re going to sit there and make a big effort to ridicule the Judeo-Christian ethic that is rooted in the founding of this country, they haven’t a prayer, folks — and I don’t say the word ‘prayer’ accidentally. I am trying to be a little humorous and ironic at the same time.
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Friday night, down in San Juan, there was an informal dinner, tables of eight or ten and I ended up sitting there with about three liberals and two of them were in journalism — names you would not know, not famous names — and a first occurred. A genuine first occurred. For the first time in my career, these liberals actually wanted to seriously know what my side thinks of what they’re saying and doing. “When we say X, what do you think? What does your side think? What do you tell your audience when we say this?” and the guy gave me an example. He said, “You have to admit that the plan for the peace and the planning for the war in Iraq was an absolute mistake,” and I said, “You know what my side says that? You know what my side says to it? ‘Keep saying it. It’s irrelevant. We’re there now.’ I’ll admit all day if you want me to admit it. I don’t believe it. I’ll admit, yeah, it was bungled. Yeah, ‘the peace,’ but I don’t agree with it. But I’ll admit it to you. But what are you going to do now? You gonna, say, use that as a reason to get out?” “No. It’s a reason Bush shouldn’t have been elected.”
“If you want to keep fighting the election, go ahead. We’re moving forward. There’s a great visionary plan,” and that started the ball rolling, and they were actually for the first time interested in my thoughts on various things that people– for example, one guy said to me, “You know, one of the things, I watched Brokaw, that Brokaw retrospective on NBC last Friday, two Friday nights ago, the two-hour special, and one of my favorite moments was when Brokaw said to Bush — this is in 2000 — ‘Well, you know, you’re replacing a guy, Bill Clinton, a 64% approval rating and you didn’t even win the popular vote. What do you think of that?’ And Bush replied, ‘Check who’s being inaugurated in two weeks, it’s me, not him,'” and I said, “You know what my side says to that? ‘Let go of Bill Clinton.’ Can you guys please let go of Bill Clinton? He had his eight years; it’s over with. It doesn’t matter what his approval rating was because he’s not president now. You’ve got his approval rating jacked up so high, what does it matter? It doesn’t matter a hill of beans to what Bush is going to do. It doesn’t matter a hill of beans now. Why replay that clip from four years ago? Let go of Bill Clinton. If you don’t let go of Bill Clinton you’re gonna keep losing elections. Bill Clinton endorses candidates; they lose. Bill Clinton’s star is rising; Democratic Party is plummeting to depths it hasn’t seen in the last 50 years.” These guys were at rapt attention. First time I wasn’t laughed at, impugned, made fun of, or ridiculed in the face of liberals in person.
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