RUSH: Dave in Rosemead, California, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi. How are you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Good, sir.
CALLER: I’m not going to say ‘dittos’ because it’s stupid. If I didn’t enjoy the show, I wouldn’t be listening.
RUSH: What do you think ‘dittos’ means.
CALLER: It means that I enjoy the show. I like the show.
RUSH: That’s good. Most people think it’s a —
CALLER: It doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with you. I agree with about nine (cell phone crackle) of what you say.
RUSH: — mind-numbed-robot, agreement-type thing, but it isn’t.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, uh… My, uh… I’m looking at George W. Bush going down as one of the worst presidents in American history.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: He’s failed at everything he’s done.
RUSH: No, he hasn’t.
CALLER: First of all, first all, let me establish my bona fides. I have Ph.D. in American history, and I’m a retired Army colonel. Okay? He started a war that he was not willing to win.
RUSH: He didn’t start it.
CALLER: His only — his only chance now is to — is to let Democrats de-fund it and try to blame the debacle on them.
RUSH: So you think that’s what he’s going to do?
CALLER: I — I think that’s exactly what he’s —
RUSH: You think he’ll eventually go along with the Democrats in de-funding this, and allowing a troop withdrawal to begin —
CALLER: No, he won’t go along.
RUSH: And blame the Democrats?
CALLER: They will not vote the funds, and he will try to blame them and the media will blame him.
RUSH: Well, now, wait a minute. You just said his only chance is to let the Democrats de-fund it. That means he’s going to sit by and let ’em do it. You just said, ‘No, he won’t go along with it.’ Now, you’re contradicting yourself.
CALLER: No, no. He’s not gonna go along with the plan for the timetable. He will refuse, and they will refuse to accommodate him, and so they will just — they won’t vote the — all they have to do is not vote the funds. It’s not something that they can — they — have to take action.
RUSH: All right, well, let’s just continue along with your theory here. Will he succeed in getting the Democrats to be seen as responsible for the defeat?
CALLER: Probably not.
RUSH: You believe not?
CALLER: I believe not. I mean, Clinton managed to get the Republicans blamed for not voting the budget, but I don’t think — I don’t think the mainstream — the mainstream media — the Drive-By Media — will allow Clinton, I mean Bush, to blame Congress.
RUSH: You think 30, 40, 50 years from now when historians probably not yet born go back over this period, that —
CALLER: Well, they’re going to see that he tried to institute a tax cut, that he failed at.
RUSH: He didn’t fail at that!
CALLER: It’s not permanent. In 2010 they’ll all go away.
RUSH: They weren’t tax cuts. They were rate reductions. Now, wait a second. Wait a second! That’s why I said, ‘No, he hasn’t,’ when you said, ‘He’s failed at everything he’s done.’ The tax rate reductions have been a boon to the economy and they were real and they were substantive.
CALLER: But they expire in 2010. Beginning now they expire one by one until 2010 and the Democrats are going to say, ‘Hey, we didn’t raise taxes. We just let Bush’s expire.’
RUSH: You gotta understand. If you’re a Ph.D. in history you understand that politics is about what you can get when you can get it. He got ten years on this stuff, and the idea was that it would be so successful and everybody would know it, it would be renewed. Now the Democrats take over, of course, it won’t be. You can’t chalk that up to failure. Bush has disappointed a lot of people on a lot of things, but it’s quite a stretch to say he’s the worst president in American history. But I’m glad you called. I wish I had more time with you, Dave. I really do, but I’m simply out of it.