RUSH: Barbara in St. Louis, I’m glad you called. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: I just heard Vice President Cheney, who is a hero of mine. I just feel so helpless about Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, whose biggest thing in life is doing these land deals. Are they as stupid as they sound?
RUSH: No. They’re not.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: No, no, no, no. They are not. Well, Pelosi… Look, this is a tough question. They’re liberals first. Whatever their IQ, they are liberals first, and you have to never forget that. Whatever their intelligence is, they are liberals first, and they are obsessed with defeating George W. Bush at every turn, whatever the policy, including the war on terror. This is not an accidental swerve into defeat. They own it. They have the deed. They are the sole owners and there’s not a mortgage on it. They bought it outright. They are the sole owners of defeat, and they are inspired and motivated towards that. As for Pelosi, I can tell you exactly what she’s doing. She is trying to show the rest of the world that if liberal Democrats are in charge, we can have peace in the world simply by going and talking to these SOBs, dictators and thugs, that we don’t have to be bullies, and that we don’t have to push them around.
We don’t have to use our superpower status against them, and we don’t have to send the military all over the world. We just have to go talk to them. They’re just like us! All we have to is engage them in conversation, show them we mean them no harm and that we want peace for their people and so forth and so on. Where they’re naïve, is that they actually believe that doing this kind of thing, talking to dictators and thugs and murderers and tyrants in this way actually changes them. I’m sure she thinks that Bashar Assad is a more reasonable guy than George W. Bush, and I am not saying that as an exaggeration. I am sure she thinks that! I’m sure she thinks that she can get more done with Assad than she can get done with Bush. For all this talk about wanting to talk to Assad and all these other people, how often do they want to Bush? They don’t want to talk to Bush. They don’t want to give Bush the time of day. I’m telling you people — I’ve told you over and over again — to them, the number one enemy of themselves and this country and the world, is Bush today and nobody else.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
We go to Grand Marais, Minnesota. Is that how you pronounce that? Laura?
CALLER: That’s right: Grand Marais, Minnesota.
RUSH: Yeah, Grand Marais, Minnesota. That’s what I thought. Go ahead. It’s great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Thank you. Rush, you’re going to have to calm me down because I was so frustrated by your Pelosi question and Cheney’s response. I was almost yelling at the radio.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What was wrong with his response out there?
CALLER: I was so hoping it would be forceful, and I was starting to say, ‘Just say it. Just say it!’ She crossed the line, I believe. I believe that she, way, went over the boundaries of what a speaker of the House is supposed to be, and I was just hoping he would say, ‘She is out of line,’ and really let her have it, kind of. (laughs)
RUSH: Well, you know, I understand how you feel. I was trying to extract some emotion from the vice president.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But two things at work here. A, he is not given to those kind of responses, ever, throughout his career. Even when he’s out in Wyoming fishing and the fish gets away, you know, he turns to his buddy and says, ‘Ah, it got away,’ and then re-baits and moves on.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: Plus, he’s also governed by the philosophies of the administration from the top down. The president doesn’t get mad. The president really doesn’t get very emotional when discussing these kinds of things. He got a little fired up for the first time in a long time, when they passed this supplemental bill that had the deadline with all the pork in it, but it’s not something that they’re given to. They’re just not going to do it.
CALLER: I guess I’d like to see more of a response from our Republicans and our elected officials, you know, calling her or at least calling these Democrats to account. I really believe that this is something that really undermines the president’s authority, in a sense, from going there and speaking to these terrorists.
RUSH: They know all of this, and I think that — I don’t know, I’m guessing, but — their way of dealing with this is underneath the public view, and in their own ways. I also think that they have confidence the American people are going to see this for what it is. Look, this administration has — and it’s frustrating to me, and I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times, they have — a view, and it comes from Bush. He has a reverence for the office.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: He is not going to behave in such a manner that he thinks detracts from that reverence, which includes not being partisan and not being ideological and not being political. Their philosophy is they’re going to be above all this. They’re going to be above the fray, and let other people go out and play like they’re in the sandbox and they’re going to trust the American people to figure this all out in the end.
CALLER: Oh, I’m glad that they have that much faith in the intelligence of the American people. I’m starting to doubt that myself. (Laughing.)
RUSH: I hear you. The American people, too many of them are a bunch of sponges out there. They just soak it all up. But, you know, we will know. You just keep a sharp eye. If on the next hunting trip Cheney invites Pelosi to go…
CALLER: (Laughing.) I’d pay to see that.
RUSH: (Laughing.) All right, well, look —
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: You bet your frustrations are felt and shared bay a lot of people.
CALLER: Good. Okay, well good.
RUSH: It’s going to be interesting to see how the press reacts to this interview, because he said some things in this interview, regardless how he said them, he said some things in this interview that, you know, we’re going to have the transcript up there at RushLimbaugh.com pretty soon so that the Drive-Bys can take it out of context.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: It will be interesting. There are a couple of points in this interview, a couple of his answers, that if they want to build this out into the Matterhorn Mountain, they’ll be able to.
CALLER: Which is the other frustration with the media always twisting things.
RUSH: Well, but they are who they are.
CALLER: I guess you have to accept it.
RUSH: You’re not going to change that. They are who they are.
CALLER: Right. Right. Well, you calmed me down a little, but —
RUSH: Well, I have that effect.
CALLER: — I’d still love to see some response that’s, you know, right there and then.
RUSH: Well, let me ask you this. Of the presidential candidates that are announced, that are out there campaigning, have you chosen one yet?
CALLER: I have not chosen one. I’m finding it a little scary, actually, but in fact I have a bet going with a friend that Hillary is going to be president, and I’m really hoping I lose it, but as far as Republicans —
RUSH: Oh, no. Who are you betting on?
CALLER: I’m not betting on any Republicans because I feel like even the ones that there are, will probably divide the Republican Party.
RUSH: (I have to ask this question twice. I’ve been through this. I’ve been a husband.) Who are you betting on?
CALLER: Well, at this point I’m getting against anybody that runs.
RUSH: No, you’ve made a bet! You made a bet with somebody who’s going to be president. Is it Hillary?
CALLER: I’m betting it’s going to be Hillary.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And I’m hoping I lose. It will be the best money I ever lost.
RUSH: How much did you bet?
CALLER: Fifty.
RUSH: Fifty bucks.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, that’s not an insignificant amount.
CALLER: No, because I’m so sure that and it’s scaring the daylights out of me, but I really believe it.
RUSH: Well, let me ask you this. If one of the presidential candidates on the campaign trail actually went on television and started ripping Pelosi over the coals, would that affect you?
CALLER: Well, I think it would encourage me, at least just to see that they’re paying attention and that they’re seeing what they’re doing to our stand in the world and how it’s undercutting the president. It’s going around him, and it’s causing or our enemies to see, that we are not a unified country, that we have an active party trying to undermine anything the president is trying to do. I find it very frustrating.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. A lot of people worry about that aspect of it. The American people respond to leadership, and that’s what you’re saying you want. When you say you want emotion, you want leadership, and the American people respond to it, and at some point it will emerge. It always does. You just have to be very patient for it. Laura, I have to go. I have another call here. Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it.
RUSH: This Kelly in Plymouth, Indiana. You’re next on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Yes. Honor to speak with you, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Just quick question. What do you believe are the consequences to Nancy Pelosi for what she has done?
RUSH: There won’t be any. If she doesn’t feel any shame or embarrassment over this, there really won’t be any. Her party is not going to do anything to her. There’s really nothing the Republicans can do to her. The consequences here ought to be worldwide embarrassment. But I don’t know whether she has the humility to feel that.
CALLER: Doubtful. Yep. Okay.
RUSH: But there won’t be any consensus. See, everybody wants vengeance here. We want some payback. We want Pelosi to suffer somehow for engaging in this sort of thing, but, you know what? It will happen. It’ll happen down the road. We may not even know when. But these kinds of things catch up with people. She’s not going to lose an election. She owns her district and so forth. But, if the Democrats don’t win the House — and they’re cruising for this. If she keeps this kind of stuff up and they keep writing these supplemental bills to defeat, secure defeat. I mean, they think they’re on the way to cementing their future for the next thousand years, running the House, they may lose it in 2008, and that would be paying the consequence. You just gotta be patient. This stuff evens out over time.
CALLER: I can only hope.
RUSH: Well, trust me. You can hope.
CALLER: Very good.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: Thank you very much, sir.
RUSH: My pleasure.