Washington Culture & The Senate GOP

RUSH: Somerville, New Jersey. Hello, Doug. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the program, sir.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much, Rush, and how are you?
RUSH: Fine.
CALLER: Rush, speaking for my wife and myself, we try to do everything we can for the overall conservative movement. My question pertains to the Senate vote of 90-9, which was, I think, designed to defy President Bush on interrogation of detainees.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And my question is: Why would seemingly good conservatives like Kay Bailey Hutchison that you were with last night, Rick Santorum — and I could probably think of a lot others — why would they vote to do such a thing? I know last night Mark Levin gave the nine senators who voted for it, who became the nine, and I was surprised at a lot of names on there, and just why would they do that?
RUSH: Well, I can only tell you what I think, and I think that it goes back to what I’ve always said: Where do these people work? They work in Washington. What is the culture in Washington? It’s that we are mean, that we are horrible, that we abuse these poor innocents, that Abu Ghraib and Club Gitmo are nothing more than modern torture chambers set up in violation of human rights by George W. Bush. The media is writing about this each and every day. The New York Times is publishing pictures as often as they can.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The Washington Post, ditto. This is where these people live, and the puzzling thing is it undermines the ability. Here we are, we just got the president the same day that he gives this speech, the day before he gives this speech, they do this —
CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — and he talks about how we’ve thwarted ten recent al-Qaeda attacks, three in this country. We just saw the overreaction to what happened in New York.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: The question needs to be asked: Let’s say New York was real and let’s say it was a nuke, and we catch the guy, and the nuke’s going to go off in two hours. Do we torture this guy, if we have to, to find out where? Do we torture this guy to save millions of people’s lives in New York? And sadly there are people in this country who say, “No, that’s not who we are.” So this, to me, the only word I can attach to it is “fear.” I think there’s just a fear of the media culture, because the way this is positioned publicly is, had this thing passed, the media would have portrayed it as “Senate votes for torture.”
CALLER: Yes. Yes.
RUSH: So the way it’s cast: “Senate votes against torture.”
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: That’s not what this is. The real headline should have been: “Senate votes to make it tougher to win war on terror.”
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: “Senate undermines presidential effort to win war on terror by making it tougher to learn future plans of al-Qaeda and other terrorist operatives.” That’s the real headline.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But since that’s not going to be the headline, the headline is going to be, “Senate votes to authorize more torture.” You can answer it. They don’t have the guts to have that headline written about them.
CALLER: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But, I mean, why would Rick Santorum and Kay Bailey Hutchison vote for it? Are they just becoming…? At the wrong time, do they realize that they work in Washington and that they’re really just about getting reelected, as opposed to following the overall conservative agenda?
RUSH: Yeah, I’ll tell you, no. In the case of those two, I don’t know. I mean, I’m just giving you a generalized answer. Santorum is down badly in the polls in Pennsylvania, although not with his base.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: So in his case that could be a problem. Senator Hutchison, I don’t know. Usually in something like this, where you’re going to have a 90-9 vote or a 93-6 vote —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — normally, the leadership will tell the various number of senators, “Hey, if you want to vote no on this for your own private needs, since it’s going to pass anyway, go ahead.”
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: I’m surprised that didn’t happen. I’m surprised that more people didn’t take advantage of the fact that this was going to be a slam-dunk and vote against it to make a statement for themselves.
CALLER: Yes, yes.
RUSH: So as to the individual concerns, there are obviously things above and beyond the fact that they just live in Washington and that’s the culture, but as to what the specifics of that may be? Hey, look, it could well be, you have to consider, that it could well be that they’re just consumers of news like the rest of us and they may think that what’s gone on is just horrible, it’s torture. “I’m not going to authorize that this be allowed to continue,” and so they may personally think this as well. The question is, “How did that come to be?” and I think that’s where the first answer then helps fill in the blanks. I’m looking at the clock. I got to run. Thanks for the call out there.
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