RUSH: This is yesterday. Dingy Harry held a press conference, and he talks about a meeting that he had with Bill Frist, the Republican leader in the Senate.
REID: One proposal out for up-or-down votes on all but four judges, which many of us on both sides of the aisle consider to be a goal of this hyped battle over judicial nominations. It also took the nuclear option off the table, which even Ken Starr said yesterday was “damaging to the Senate as an institution and amounts, quote, to an assault on the judicial branch of government.” End of quote. This compromise would break the gridlock over these seven judges and allow us to get back to doing the people’s business.
RUSH: It would not break the deadlock over seven judges. It would break the deadlock over four of them, and that’s not part of the deal, Dingy Harry. See, this is how it works. Ken Starr goes on CBS last night; he didn’t just say it was an assault on the judicial branch, he said it was “radical.” He said what the Republicans in the Senate are trying to do is “a radical assault on the judicial branch of government, damaging to the Senate,” and all that sort of stuff — and here’s Dingy Harry picking it up and running with it. These guys hated Ken Starr. I can’t tell you how much they hated Ken Starr. They did everything they could to destroy Ken Starr. Now all of a sudden here comes Ken Starr saying things they can use and Ken Starr is a great guy! It’s just not my kind of town, folks. I’m telling you it just isn’t my kind of town.
I can’t explain why Starr did it. All I can do is speculate, and I think it all has to do with the DC culture trying to rebuild reputations, understanding who runs that town. If you want to have any kind of a future there and you want to have any kind of reputation, you’ve gotta make sure you rip your own guys, rip your own party. The same with Newt and Hillary and this health care business. So Dingy Harry is on the march now getting allies from what would be considered Republican ranks, and here’s one more Dingy Harry. Grab me sound bite two here. This is a press conference again yesterday, and here’s Dingy Harry explaining what he really wants when it comes to judges.
REID: This fight is not about the seven radical nominations. It’s about clearing the way for a Supreme Court nominee who only needs 51 votes, not 60. They want a Clarence Thomas, not a Sandra Day O’Connor or an Anthony Kennedy or a David Souter.
RUSH: So what? So what?
REID: George Bush wants to run the Senate into a second House of Representatives, a rubber stamp for his right-wing agenda and radical judges. That’s not how America works.
RUSH: So you see exactly what I’ve been telling you all along is the case. They’re worried to death that some of these nominees will make it and then be considered for Supreme Court nominations down the road — and for the first time in 214 years Dingy Harry is upset that it’s going to take only 51 votes. He’s acting like 60 votes to confirm a judge is the norm. It never has been. For 214 years all you needed was a simple majority on the floor of the Senate to confirm a judicial nominee. You never needed 60 until Dingy Harry and Daschle and his guys got going. Now, McCain. This is the story I was telling you about mere moments ago. “Senator McCain is urging the Senate GOP majority to cut a deal with Democrats over President Bush’s nominees, even as Bill Frist warns that a confrontation over filibusters could come next week.
Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday McCain told fellow Republican senators at their closed-door weekly lunch that he believes Democrats will agree to a deal allowing confirmation votes on nearly all of the seven judicial candidates they blocked during Bush’s first term. Democrats want their right to filibuster judicial nominees as part of any compromise. McCain said Republicans should trust assurances from Harry Reid regarding Supreme Court appointments. Privately, Reid has told Republicans he will not filibuster any Supreme Court nominee except in extreme circumstances.”
What the hell! Would somebody explain to me, after looking at what they’re saying about these seven nominees, who in the world that Bush sends up is not going to be called an extreme nominee or an extreme circumstance? And McCain wants us to take this deal. “Some Republicans claim that Reid has offered to make sure that even if there is a filibuster against a Supreme Court nominee, it will fail, but Reid’s aides vehemently deny that he has made such a proposal.” So even after this meeting, Frist said, “Nah, we are going to go ahead with this because we need floor votes on all seven of these nominees.” So that’s the latest on that. McCain: “Please, please! Make a deal with Dingy Harry. He’s promised he won’t filibuster Supreme Court nominees except in extreme circumstances,” which, you know, you just have to wonder. Do these people in the Senate, do some of these Republicans not pay attention to what the Democrats are doing? How can you miss this? I’m getting the point here I can’t explain it anymore. I’m getting to the point it’s defying all logic. It doesn’t make any sense.
How can the people closest to these Democrats in the Senate, the Republicans, how can the people who work with them and get treated the way they are by them daily not see them as they are? How in the world do you think these are people you can make a deal with? Why would you want to make a deal with them when the deal is their deal, when the deal says three of these seven are extreme; you’ve gotta ditch ’em? Well, I know one answer is called 2008, and this is where you get into– This is what a lot of this is, except in Starr’s case I don’t think he’s going to run for president, but we know Newt is toying with the idea, and McCain said (paraphrasing): “Yeah, I want to be president. I’m going to run. I’m just not going to do it now,” and he’s been chiding John Kerry for being too eager about all this.
There is news of a different sort coming out of Washington and that is about John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee for UN ambassador. “Bolton has gained momentum despite weeks of intense investigation with at least one wavering Republican now falling into line with the White House.” That would be Senator Lincoln Chafee. He told the Associated Press yesterday that he “reluctantly would support Bolton when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes Thursday on whether to recommend Bolton’s confirmation by the full Senate. Democrats are looking ahead to a close committee vote, said they had not yet decided whether they would filibuster the nomination if it got to the Senate.” This is starting to become a joke now. You know, this is almost like the Republicans up there are the biggest bunch of blind bats and dunces that we’ve ever encountered. I mean, can’t they see what’s right in front of their nose?
“Senator Biden said yesterday that Democrats would not stall the committee vote but said he would push the panel’s chairman, Richard Lugar, to hold off until Democrats received information they had requested from the State Department and the National Security Agency.” Another committee Democrat, Christopher Dodd, he of waitress sandwich fame with Senator Kennedy, said, “We got another couple days. I’m optimistic that we’ll get a good committee vote. If we don’t then we’ll decide about a filibuster,” said Dodd who commented after committee Democrats met for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon.
Chafee said that despite his apprehensions, he decided to support the nominee because he believes Bush or any chief executive should be able to choose his own team. “I won’t deny a lot of the information certainly brings great pause but I fight the administration on so many issues. This is one I’ve been with them on to appoint their team. I’m not going to fight the administration on this.” Now, I’ve been thinking about this, too. What really is it that upsets these people about John Bolton? I think it’s real simple. I think he’s a man. He’s not a wuss. He’s not a girlie man.
He’s not a wimp. He’s not one of these guys that worries about, you know, all these feelings. “Can’t hurt feelings!” You know, he’s a guy that worries about getting the job done — and if you can’t do the job, then we’re going to get somebody in here who can. He’s an old-fashioned man. Just a plain old-fashioned capital M, capital A, capital N, man. Now they’re making fun of his mustache and the way he looks, but to hell with that! The way he acts, he’s an old-fashioned man. I think he’s intimidating. I think he’s too decisive. I think he’s too certain of himself. He doesn’t see enough nuance. He doesn’t understand. Plus he’s Bush’s guy, and his nomination actually is about much more than him; it’s about Bush’s foreign policy, and the Democrats trying to sabotage that as well as our relationship with the United Nations.
Now, this is Wednesday, anything can happen tomorrow. Anything can happen the rest of the day. These Democrats could say, “Ah, we’re not going to do this. Go ahead and have a vote.” We’ll believe it when it happens, the same thing as if it was reported — well, Voinovich still on the fence, but we’ll wait and see. Lugar thinks he’s got the votes here or we wouldn’t be having the vote; bottom line.
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RUSH: I’m sitting here; I’m fuming. I thought we weren’t supposed to “attack judges.” When DeLay or me or anybody talks about the need to rein in the judiciary, why, we’re accused of fomenting violence against these people, right? And yet here’s Dingy Harry and all these Democrats that can run around and call these people radical and say that they sound like “Islamic Jihadists.” I thought we weren’t supposed to criticize or attack judges! Several of these nominees are sitting lower-court judges, including two of whom are elected state Supreme Court justices.
They’re elected, and so we’ve got the Democrats out there virtually trashing them, trying to destroy them, giving speeches where they sound like Islamic Jihadists. They’re radical. They’re like Clarence Thomas. I guess it’s okay to attack Clarence Thomas as well. As for McCain, would somebody tell me, would just one person tell me why should McCain’s Republican colleagues in the Senate care what he says? He doesn’t care what they say.
In fact, McCain has built a political career stiffing his Republican colleagues if you ask me. Why should everybody care what he says? Because he’s approved and has the DC establishment seal of approval. Next, who gets to define extreme nominees? Hmm? Radical Democrats like Reid, Boxer, Hillary, Schumer and Leahy? You know damn well they’re the ones that will define extreme nominees. They get to define what’s extreme, when Bush is authorized under the Constitution to make these nominations. I don’t know if the Republicans even have the gravitas to run the Senate.
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RUSH: Here’s Joe in New York City. Hi, Joe. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I have to take exception to your apparent assumption that Ken Starr’s position on the whole judicial filibuster thing is just a contrived device to curry favor with the media or the liberals or wherever you seem to think it is.
RUSH: Oh, this is great. Another guy who doesn’t get it.
CALLER: Oh, no. What do you mean?
RUSH: Like I said, you know, it’s one thing to oppose killing the filibustering of judges because of something. It’s quite another thing to describe what the Republicans are doing as radical. It’s not radical what the Republicans want to do. The nuclear option is not radical. What the Democrats are doing is radical. I’m not upset with Starr. He can disagree, whatever he wants. It’s the way he goes about and attacks the Republicans that falls in lockstep with the Democrats that I’m suspicious of.
CALLER: Well, you’re a little bit ahead of me because I didn’t actually see the interview. He may have described it as radical, but if that’s what you’re complaining about then perhaps you have a point. But I still don’t see — he may even honestly believe that it’s a radical idea that may be, if nothing else, possibly imprudent. I don’t know how Senate procedures work but if there’s a major —
RUSH: Well I do.
CALLER: — that he may disagree with.
RUSH: Okay. All right. This is the kind of guy that they’d like to have in the United Nations. This is gobbledygook. I have to tell you, this is mashed potatoes. We gotta give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He can say whatever he wants to say but to set out to attack what the Republicans are doing as radical, come on now. He doesn’t have to go that far. He doesn’t have to do that. It’s amazing. What the Republicans are doing is radical. Nominating originalist judges is radical. What Harry Reid and the others are saying — how come nobody is calling me and talking to me about how dangerous the rhetoric is coming out of Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy? How come nobody is worried about the fact that Leahy is calling Janice Rogers Brown, the judge from California on the Supreme Court out there, an Islamic Jihadist?
We’re supposed to give Leahy the benefit of the doubt on that, too? (doing impression) “Well, maybe he just has a very strong sense of disagreement.” Well, we’re not supposed to be able to attack judges in this country. I thought that was the lesson that popped up after Schiavo. I think the call screener is in on the action. I think they’re trying to push me over the edge here today.