RUSH: Here is Brett in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. I think it’s time for Karl Rove to hit the road, in all honesty. I mean, I was a big Bush supporter, still am, big conservative, but I think he was great at getting somebody elected, whether it be an ASB election or presidential election. I just think he’s not real great when it comes to helping with policy. Tax breaks were a no-brainer, Judge Roberts was a no-brainer, I don’t think, but Miers was just horrible. Iraq was not the first place we should have gone, that’s for sure, and then since then I don’t think we’ve handled it as deftly as we should have, especially from the White House. Katrina was not handled properly, not so much in that the failure — you know, FEMA’s response. You know, I think they’ve played — I think Rove has led this president down the trail of play politics far too often instead of stick to the facts and stick to being right when you’re right.
RUSH: Hey, Brett, how long you been listening to the program?
CALLER: Oh, probably ten years.
RUSH: What year would that be?
CALLER: Oh, golly gee, ’95.
RUSH: ’95. Well, why do you think Karl Rove is responsible for all of this? I mean, from what you’ve just said it sounds to me like you might think that Bush ought to resign.
CALLER: Well, no, it’s not — I think that — I mean, look, I agree with you that the state department and the CIA have been useless for the better part of 60 years, and we really can’t get a lot of help out of that from the bureaucracy, but I think Rove, unfortunately, I think that the president has himself a very tight knit group of people that he listens to, and I think ultimately I think Rove does generate a tremendous amount of direction. Whether or not I — you know, whether or not it’s “the” direction, I often think —
RUSH: See, what you’re saying is, and please forgive me for this, but you sound like a Democrat because to believe all this you have to believe that Bush basically doesn’t have a brain and that Karl Rove is his brain and that Bush doesn’t do anything without Rove and all we’ve got to do is get rid of Rove and then Bush can be Bush.
CALLER: No, I just think they need some new ideas. I’m not necessarily of the mind set that, hey, look to me the function of a president is not to know everything, it’s so surround himself with great people and listen to them when he needs to because as far as I’m concerned, that’s what makes a great leader. That’s what made somebody like Ronald Reagan.
RUSH: Well, okay. Everybody’s laboring under a misunderstanding here. I don’t know, for example, if anybody can tell me what one Karl Rove decision was. What did Rove decide to do and Bush said, “Ooh, all right, Karl babe, that sounds good. Let’s do it.” When you cite Ronald Reagan, you know, it’s a great example. Reagan and all leaders are forceful. They are definitive. They are not wishy-washy. Leaders are understood. You never have questions about where a leader is going. You don’t have questions about where a leader is coming from. So when Reagan populated his administration with people, they knew what Reagan wanted and they were there to do it, and if they didn’t do it there was hell to pay, there were problems. Ronald Reagan was the leader of a movement in addition to being the president of the United States. Somehow, some people think that Bush is not that, that the people that work for Bush don’t really know what Bush wants because Bush doesn’t know, so they have to do it themselves.
The latest that has come down the pike about Harriet Miers, by the way, is not Rove. The guy being blamed for Harriet Miers is Andrew Card. Andrew Card, the chief of staff, who it’s now being said, “Well, you know, Andrew Card was really close to Sununu and that gave us Souter and it was Card that was pushing Miers. It wasn’t Rove.” So I guess we gotta get
rid of Andrew Card as well, the chief of staff. Now, my personal belief is that Harriet Miers is the nominee because that’s who George Bush wants. And I don’t believe anything else. I don’t believe that there are shadow presidents here. I don’t believe this notion that George W. Bush is an empty suit, running around and other people are running the show. They’ve tried this. They’ve tried this with Cheney. Cheney, he’s a foreign policy hijacker, you know, hijack…a cabal because Bush doesn’t know what to do about that. And I would hate to see you falling for this notion. But let me tell you, let’s just cut to the chase of your point. It’s time to get rid of Rove.
Now, I must tell you at the outset, Brett, I thought you were a seminar caller, because that’s a left-wing echo. We gotta get rid of Rove. But, see, the left doesn’t want to get rid of Rove to make things better. The left doesn’t want to get rid of Rove to improve the administration. I don’t hear any Republicans talking about getting rid of Rove. I’m now hearing some Republicans saying this Card guy is a problem. But I think this is all just talk, and it’s all founded in the notion that Bush is a wandering, aimless, brain-dead human being who has no clue what he’s doing. I know that that’s not the case. I know as well as I can know it, anyway, not being in those buildings, that that’s not the case. But if Karl Rove is summarily dispatched, if Karl Rove quits, and whether there’s an indictment or not, if he resigns, all you’re going to see is a call for Scooter Libby to go, and then it will be time for Dick Cheney to go, and then it will be time for Rumsfeld to go. If you think Karl Rove resigning, retiring, offering himself as a sacrificial lamb is going to silence critics and is going to straighten out the administration and make for smooth sailing, you are sadly mistaken. The way to fight this is to not give the left one shred of what they want. When are we going to learn this? Screw them!
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