RUSH: All right, folks, I want to start off here with the judge deal. I’m starting to see some giddiness out there from people on our side that these judges are being confirmed this week. Janice Rogers Brown yesterday; Bill Pryor will be confirmed today, and Priscilla Owen last week. Was it last week or before the break? It was before the Memorial Day break. So the three that were agreed to by virtue of that gang-of-14 deal by the end of today will have been confirmed, like yesterday for example Janice Rogers Brown confirmed by 56-42. There was one Democrat that crossed over and voted for her. It was Ben Nelson of Nebraska — who, by the way, is one of the Democrats’ gang of seven. But we had a call yesterday from somebody who said, “I’m glad to see, Rush, that you may be admitting you were wrong here in criticizing the deal when it happened.”
I said, “Whoa, what makes you think I’m changing my tune on the deal?” I’m not changing my tune on the deal at all. I still think it’s a bad deal because the filibuster is still there — and it’s going to happen. But here’s what troubles me. There’s all kinds of giddiness out there now from people. “Hey, look, Rush. Hey, look, we’re getting the judges! We’re getting the judges!”
You know why you’re giddy? You’re giddy because expectations have been lowered. The liberals have successfully lowered expectations, and people on our side are buying it. These judges, under traditional and normal circumstances, should have been confirmed years ago. The same with the rest of them. They’re not giving us anything here. You might say, “Well, yeah, but we’re winning. We’re winning because they were filibustered.” Yeah, we’re winning but this is the way it always used to happen. You always had judges confirmed by votes of 52, 51, 56. This should have happened years ago.
This is really nothing to celebrate in terms of a big victory because this is the normal way that judicial nominees who come out of the judiciary committee get confirmed. You know, this is what’s always happened in the past after you win elections.
This really is nothing to go gaga over — and, I’ll tell you what, the Democrats are getting angrier and angrier about this, and I can see why some people think it’s time to be happy because the Democrats are mad, and I can grant you that.
I mean, I can understand it’s great to see the Democrats mad and PO’d and all that, but because they’re mad after they let a few of these judges go through, there may be a little bit of a rebellion in their ranks, but they’re going to stonewall again and we’re going to have to do what we needed to do in the first place and that is break the unconstitutional filibuster. That day is still ahead of us. That day is still coming. Now, a lot of people are saying that Bill Frist won on the filibuster deal. Others are saying the deal was good; that we’re getting the judges.
This is not a criticism of Senator Frist. I’m merely addressing the attitudes of those of you on our side in this. You know, if you’re all excited, say, “Wow, man this is cool! All right, we are kicking butt!” Folks, this is what should have been happening all along. This is what always used to happen. It has taken years to get to what always used to happen. We were always supposed to get judges. That’s why you win elections. That’s what happens. But mark my words, this deal is not going to last. The liberals will filibuster at some point down the road, and the Republicans will then kill it — or they better, because conservatives reacted so strongly against this deal. When that first filibuster of a judicial nominee comes up, Republicans better kill it, because conservatives reacted so strongly to it, efforts to negotiate away another part of the Constitution. We’re going to be the ones who force the issue. If we applauded this sellout, the Republican majority would not have the stomach to beat back the obstruction when it comes up again — which it will.
So I just think it’s important here to understand the dynamics and not play the inside-the-Beltway game of which politician won and which politician lost. This is about We the People — and, you know, we worked hard, a lot of you did, to get certain people elected, and there are reasons that people get elected, and this is one of them. You get to shape the judiciary after you win elections. We are the ones who are driving this agenda, as we should be, and I think it’s a little defensive and almost a little bit like minority thinking that, “Wow, man, okay, we got our judges in there.”
Yeah, we did — and I’m not downplaying the importance of that in the real world — I’m just saying that for the future, you know, don’t start changing your mind about this deal being a good thing, because you’re going to find out down the road that we still have to deal with this filibuster business. It’s hilarious. Harry Reid, Dingy Harry, is out there saying that we’ve spent way too much time on these judges anyway. He can’t believe that we’ve shut down the government basically over five judges, he’s saying, and he’s blaming the Bush administration for this. We’re not dealing with gas prices, we’re not dealing with health care, we’re not dealing with the issues of the people, and it’s the president’s fault. This is loser lingo, folks. I know Dingy Harry loves to describe President Bush as a loser, but this is loser lingo. He’s now trying once again to redefine the terms. He’s trying to make it look like they had nothing to do with this four-year delay on Priscilla Owen, with this three-year delay on Janice Rogers Brown. Yeah, that was all Bush’s fault.
Why, Bush nominated these judges three and four years ago, and if Bush had been serious about it, they’d have been confirmed three or four years ago. This is absurd. It’s absurd. The Democrats, their policy committee also had a meeting yesterday to come up with new ideas. “The New Democrat Coalition huddled for three hours Tuesday to plot strategy, determine which issues it will champion and try to generate new ideas for the Democratic Party.” Three hours. After three hours, for all intents and purposes, admitted they don’t have any ideas. I take it back. I take it back. They had one. They discussed a desire to weigh in soon on predatory lending. That’s all it says here, predatory lending. So you’ve got portability of pensions, predatory lending, Election Day as a national holiday, and voting machines must have a paper trail. Those are the issues that the Democrat leadership has come up with, combined leadership, as their ticket to ride back to power in the country.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Dingy Harry, it’s become a talking point, Durbin is out there saying it, and, of course, the smartest man in the Senate now, Barack Obama, have you caught that? This guy is being touted as the smartest guy in the Senate. He can’t be said to be the smartest person in the Senate because that’s Hillary. The smartest guy in the Senate is Barack Obama, and I have to tell you, I don’t get it. I don’t see it. I hear Barack Obama speak and I think it’s all spin. He says nothing different than anybody else is saying and he’s picked up on this talking point that Bush and the Republicans have shut down the country, folks. They have shut down the country over the judges. We’re not doing the work of the people because we’ve shut down the country over the judges and they’re all picking it up, and this, of course, is to simply mask their defeat. This is done simply to redefine terms and to mask their defeat.
While the Republicans are out there acting all giddy because they got these three judges through, the Democrats know they look like losers, and so they’re trying to take their loser platform, turn it around as far as the media is concerned, to make it look like, “This is no big deal, no big deal anyway, who cares about five judges?” Dingy Harry, “Five judges, we’ve shut down the whole country over five judges. It was just two weeks ago these guys were — Bob Byrd said that “We saved the country,” didn’t he, after the gang of 14 did their little dance, Bob Byrd said, “We saved the republic. We saved the Senate,” all this. I mean, I can’t keep track of these people. Either the country was not moving and we shut it down or they saved it one way or the other. It’s just an exercise, folks, in just how — well, some people might say good — they are. Others might say how just hopeless they are. They will not admit that they lose; they will not admit to defeat — and, of course, they will not allow anybody to blame them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have the Harry Reid sound bite. This was at a press conference yesterday, saying that the judge battle has shut down the nation.
HARRY: We have squandered legislative time in the Senate with these judges. No question about it. I cannot imagine the president’s going — would allow the country to be brought to a stand still, and that’s what’s happened for the last two months. And for these five judges, that’s what’s happened.
RUSH: You would have thought that he never cared. You would think that he never opposed them. These five judges? These five judges, five irrelevant people? Why, these five judges were going to destroy the country. They were going to tear up the Constitution. They were going to rip it to shreds and they were going to flush it down Harry Reid’s toilet. These people were so out of the mainstream. They were so extreme, folks. These judges had to be stopped at all costs — and now, “I can’t imagine the president’s going to allow the country to be brought to a stand still, we’ve squandered legislative time in the Senate with these judges?” Let me tell you what’s happened, they’ve got some focus group data polling out there, folks, they’ve got some internal polling and it doesn’t look good for them.
That’s exactly what this means, that plus trying to change the subject. That plus trying to redefine the terms here, but they have to have some polling data that shows them really taking it in the shorts on this — and so they’re trying to turn this around, “We never cared about judges. The president caused this to happen. Why, he nominated these people three or four years ago, and, why, I can’t believe we spent three or four years on five people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
By the way, it’s exactly what I mean when I tell you that liberals look at you and see a bunch of dunces, folks. This is how stupid they think you are. This is how condescending they can be. You are so stupid. Maybe it’s also in reaction to the fact that a lot of people aren’t paying a lot of attention to this. Maybe they’ve got internal polling data that says, you know, a whole lot of people aren’t even paying attention to this — and Dingy Harry saying, you know, we’re wasting a lot of time on this, because nobody cares. We’re not scoring points here because nobody cares. Who knows, whatever, but they’ve got internal polling data, and it doesn’t look good for them, ergo Dingy Harry’s statement.
In the Washington Post story about Janice Rogers Brown being approved for the DC circuit, Dingy Harry has the following quote. “She is the epitome of an activist judge. She is a judge, she’s not a legislator. She has no right to do the thing that she does.” This was yesterday, the same day he said, “I can’t believe we’re holding everything up for five people. I can’t believe the president would do this, would shut down the legislation agenda of the people. I can’t believe that Bush would do this,” and then he says the same day, “She has no right to do the things that she does.” That’s incredible. She has no right to do the things that she does. Why, she’s an American citizen, Dingy Harry.