I’ve got a vague memory here from last week. Was it Dingy Harry or some other Democrat or a series of Democrats who asked the president to stop being so critical of him, of Dingy Harry? Dingy Harry (interruption). Okay, asked for the Republicans to get off his back and to stop being so critical, and it’s this kind of stuff that just amazes me. Here’s the story from Ron Brownstein on February 10th in the Los Angeles Times: “Democrats Strike Newly Assertive Posture — In both style and substance Democrats are mounting a much more aggressive and unified opposition to President Bush than they did following his election in 2000.” How in the world…? How in the world can the Democrats outdo what they did in 2000 and 2001 and 2002 and 2003 and 2004? How can they possibly outdo that? How can they think, how can they continue to think that they’re too mild and too timid and too reserved and too laid back? Now they’ve gotta really fire back both barrels? They’ve gotta go for the throat? What do they think they have been doing for 40 years? And then you’ve got this story from Brownstein who himself fails to see what they’ve been doing all these years. It’s really stunning to me.
This is why I continue to be amazed that these people are delusional and devoid of any reality whatsoever. They think that Bush and the Republicans are being too critical of Harry Reid? They don’t recall any of the things said by Jim Wright? Let’s go back to the House Speakership. Let’s go back to Tom Foley. How about David Bonior? How about some of that group that was united against Newt Gingrich all during the nineties? The things that have been said about George W. Bush just in the last year’s campaign — and Dingy Harry is out there whining and moaning about how oh-so-mean the Republicans are and they better stop criticizing him? Now, what does this stem from? This is a classic example of elitism. They’re so devoid of reality; they’re above criticism. This is not the way to go. As though they still think as they thought when they were running the show with a big seat majority in the House all during the sixties and seventies.
It is just stunning, and to see their willing accomplices in the press fall right in line and think that this criticism and so-called extremism and so-called mean-spiritedness is a one-way street? These people can’t take it. What’s the old saw? They can dish it out but they can’t take it? For crying out loud, they have no clue. Try 30 years of this kind of stuff. Thirty years of lies and misrepresentations, 30 years of trying to impugn and discredit people because you can’t beat them with their ideas. You can’t beat their ideas; you can’t beat them in the arena of ideas, so you make up things about them. That’s what the Democrat modus operandi has been for as long as I’ve been doing this program and longer — and what’s going on now is, by the way, not personal criticism of Dingy Harry. What’s going on is criticism of their ideas. You can’t criticize their ideas; you can quote them accurately, otherwise you are said to be engaging in a personal “attack.” They just can’t take it. These are little kids! These are spoiled, rotten little kids who can’t get over the fact that they’re not in charge of the ball in the sandbox anymore. In fact, they’re not even in the sandbox, and they want back in it.
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RUSH: Here is Dingy Harry. This is a montage from last Tuesday on the Senate floor, Dingy Harry whining and moaning about the president attacking him.
REID: What government’s all about is honesty, integrity, not phoniness. Why didn’t he stand and tell the American people last Wednesday that one of the first items of business we were going to do in Washington is send out a hit piece on the Democratic leader? I mean, is President George Bush a man of his word? He said that he was going to reach out to the Democrats. Strange way to reach out. Mr. President, I call upon you to repudiate this document, to tell the Republican National Committee: “Don’t mail it.”
RUSH: You know, I just cannot believe this! You know, for the 16-plus years that I have been hosting this program — and I’m not a Republican leader; I’m not a senator; I’m not a member of the House — I have had more erroneous, lying things written and said about me, and I have yet to come to this microphone and go, “Waaaaah! You make him stop! Make him stop! It’s about honesty and integrity.'” This is just unbelievable! I guess the RNC… I bet I can guess what this was. Let me guess, I don’t know what this was but I bet the RNC sent out of you with their famous faxes or e-mails or something that just had a series of Dingy Harry quotes over the years and his voting record and it showed that he was something other than what he purports to be and so Dingy Harry is upset that the bloom is off the rose. He’s upset that the truth is being shined, the light of truth shined on his voting record and what he said and he calls that an “attack” and he calls it dirty politics and he’s upset the president didn’t announce in the State of the Union speech that the next day we’re going to attack the Senate leader of the Democrats. (Laughing) Is that pretty much what it was? I guaran-damn-tee you I knew what it was, that’s all you have to do. I made a big point in my speech out in San Francisco, KSFO, San Jose. I said, “It’s got to the point now where all you have to do is be a member of the White House press corps and accurately quote Democrat senators and a Boston Globe will hire two reporters to do an investigation of you to find out just who the hell you are, as in the name Jeff Gannon.” I mean, it’s just funny as it can be. What a bunch of crybabies! And it’s all because they can’t stand the truth of what they say and what they’ve voted to be broadcast to the American people. Why is that? Because they’re saying something totally different than what they’re doing. They go out and they try to say things this way, but they vote in entirely different ways. Now this last Friday at the winter meeting of the Democratic Party, here’s a portion of Dingy Harry’s remarks there.
REID: The dirty politics and attack dog tactics have started from the Republican Party. They have brought one piece of legislation to the Senate floor, one, but they’ve mailed to a million people copies of a 13-page booklet on how to attack me. They want to do the same thing to me that they were able to do to our friend Tom Daschle. We know their game and we’re not going to let them get away with it (Applause.)
RUSH: Okay, Dingy Harry. Okay, put ’em up. Put ’em up! Let’s put up the dukes and let’s go at it, Dingy Harry. You’re not going to let it happen to you what happened to Daschle. What happened to Daschle? His own voters turned him out, Dingy Harry — and why? Because he was disingenuous! He was one Tom Daschle when he was back in his home state; he was quite a different Tom Daschle when he was in Washington. You guys do nothing but obstruct! You come up with filibusters to stop presidential appointments. You come up with extra-constitutional procedures in order to get your way because you will lose in the normal democratic fashion. Wherever Democrats think they’re going to lose in the democratic fashion, they go out and try to change the rules as in filibustering judicial nominees. They obstruct and obstruct and obstruct and stand in the way and refuse to allow any piece of legislation the president has his name on to go forward, and the Republicans fight back and they say, “All right. If you’re going to obstruct us and you’re going to be extra-constitutional about it we’re going to make sure you get video out of office.” It’s called democracy, Dingy Harry — and so now Dingy Harry is standing up, and, boy, I’ll tell you what. He has a forceful voice, does he not? When Dingy Harry speaks, folks, I know I’m quaking in my boots, my 11-wides.
I can sure tell you I’m scared when I listen to Dingy Harry offer these counterstrikes. But anyway can’t take it, a bunch of whiners and a bunch of moaners. They simply are. In their minds whatever they want to say about their political opponents is fine and justified because that’s a way they look at things. They have this definition of “the common good.” The Common Good always equals them in power and them running the show. So, if that equals the Common Good, anything that guarantees that or secures that is permissible: lying, cheating, obstructing, whatever. It’s okay if they do it because they have this attitude. Remember what I said: Their big problem on the left is that they think they are god and everybody else is a heretic, everybody who disagrees with them is a heretic, and they’re god. It’s gods that act this way, false gods that act this way that think they’re above criticism, that think they are above having the truth told about them. They think if it’s the Common Good that has to be achieved, lying and cheating is okay and look the other way because we’re only doing it for everybody’s Common Good. The problem is their definition of the Common Good has been established to be anything but.
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RUSH: This is funny! Mr. Snerdley went to the website. What, was this the RNC website? Oh, you got the e-mail? Oh, you’re on a list I’m not on. Mr. Snerdley got this thing that old Dusty Harry here is upset about, folks. We’ve got to post this on the website today. This is hilarious. I guess the RNC’s put together a fake newspaper called, “Reid All About It,” R-e-i-d, “All the facts you need to know. Washington edition 35 cents inside the Beltway, not available in Nevada,” and it says, “Who was Harry Reid? Senate minority leader determined to obstruct Bush’s agenda,” and it just lists things Harry Reid has said and done and the votes that he’s made. “In 1999 Reid declared, ‘Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector.’ In ’99 Reid said, ‘I think we gotta take care of Social Security.’ In ’99 Harry Reid said, ‘We are visiting Chile because it’s doing interesting thing in Social Security and there are parts of its free market system.'” So he supported strengthening Social Security in 1999, which happens to be the year Bill Clinton made Save Social Security — or Put Social Security first, whatever it was — his mantra, and now he opposes it, and then they list all of the votes for higher taxes on Social Security benefits, at least eight times, and they list the votes here, and then they count all the times he voted against Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering, William Pryor, Carolyn Kuhl, and Janice Brown.
The list goes on. It’s 13 pages of Dingy Harry Reid votes and statements. They’re all accurate. It all comes from television shows and newspaper articles in the Senate floor and the Congressional Record, and because of that Dingy Harry is beside himself and is accusing the president of launching a dirty personal attack against him. Now, this is exactly what I’ve said. I said this Tuesday night last week in San Jose, that all you have to do to get these people’s dander up is quote them. Just quote them, and they will accuse you of a dirty political personal attack. Cite their voting record and they say you are on ‘a search-and-destroy mission.” You are out to destroy. It is uncanny. They are unwilling to stand behind their votes. Dingy Harry is, anyway. He’s unwilling to stand behind his statements. He’s unwilling for you to even know about it and has to go then whine and cry and moan about how the president is launching this 13-page personal attack on him and demanding the president cancel the mailing. (Laughing.) These people! This is why I’m not worried, folks — and I run into people all the time still panicked, still worried, still concerned, and I don’t mind that. I mean, when I say I’m not worried; I’m always vigilant, but the way these people are currently constituted, I’ll tell you what worries me more than the Democrats is the Republicans. Whether the Republicans are going to have the gonads to take advantage of the circumstances they find themselves in.
We’ve never had a Democratic Party weaker, more disoriented, more kook-fringe left more out-of-touch with the mainstream of this country than they are today. And it worries me more that the Republicans everywhere, not just the Senate or the House, just everywhere, will not be willing to take full advantage of this. I’ve gotta give you an example. Let me find it here in this stack. There’s something that trouble — came from the New York Daily News, and I think it’s today, yesterday, sometime over the week. I’ve got show prep stuff coming out my rear end here, folks, because I’ve just been printing it and absorbing it since I got back here. Yeah, yeah, here we go. It’s today. It’s today from the New York Daily News and it’s an editorial. Maybe it’s not an editorial. I can’t tell the way this printed out. “‘President Bush is so worried about Social Security, he’d back raising taxes and cutting benefits to ensure the program’s solvency,’ said a leading Republican yesterday. ‘Nothing is off the bargaining table,’ promised the Senate finance committee chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa. ‘The answer is yes,’ Grassley said on Meet the Press on whether Bush would sign a reform bill with increased taxes and cut benefits, if it included private accounts, ‘and not only that, but listen, the alternative of doing nothing is also a benefit cut. Bush knows that personal accounts will not solve the problem. There are a hundred moving parts to Social Security reform.'”
I agree with that, but this business of putting tax increases on the table? The president hasn’t said that, has he? It’s been just the opposite. The president is a known tax-cutter. So this is an example of the fear I have, is that the Republican Party — and you know, you never know when a senator goes up there on television and starts talking and saying, “Well, this is going to happen. This is going to happen.” You never know whether he’s representing the president’s viewpoint or his own and is trying to force the president into his position, but this is exactly what I’m talking about. This is Charles Grassley, and the worry that I have here is that the Republicans think it more important to claim a victory in reforming Social Security than making sure it’s done the right way. You know, we don’t have to reject our core principles in the name of reform. We need to use our core principles to make the reform and one of our core principles is tax cuts. What good is raising taxes going to be to achieve Social Security reform? It cuts away at our core principles. We don’t need to be cutting away at our core principles with the circumstances the Democrats find themselves in now. We… This is the… You know… How to say this? The thing that bothers me about this is that here you’ve got the Democrats who can’t stop acting like they still run the show and you’ve got Republicans who’ll start acting like they do, and it bothers me to no end.
So, folks, don’t misunderstand me. When I go on and on and on here about my optimism I’m being totally genuine with you and when I say, “I’m not worried about the Democrats,” I mean it. I mean, these people are so off the beaten path and so far out of the mainstream that you know, what they say and do, I don’t care. I’ve got pieces here from Chuck Rangel about Iraq. I don’t care, other than the fact it’s entertaining. It makes me mad; it infuriates me but it doesn’t worry me, doesn’t worry me that Rangel is going to persuade anybody. The Democrats have been trying to gin up opposition to Iraq ever since before it happened, and they have failed. You can look at every effort they’ve made to try to undermine the president’s policy anywhere you want to look and they’ve failed and they’ve shown no signs of knowing how to do it and do it right in a political sense. So let them keep talking. I think every time they open their mouths and announce their intentions it only helps. They are driving a wedge between themselves and the mainstream of this country. But on the other end of that ledger is the Republicans taking advantage of it — and one of the problems with Republicans is they live in Washington and they want to get along with the mainstream press, and they want to be invited on these mainstream press shows and they want to be treated politely when they’re invited, and that means criticizing your own party or talking liberal things like raising taxes. That will get you on TV every time.
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