RUSH: In the New York Times today: ‘Bill Clinton’s suggestion that his wife faced a Republican-style ‘Swift boat’ attack during and after the last Democratic debate drew a rebuke yesterday from [Barry] Obama, who said, ‘I was pretty stunned by that statement.” This story is all about Clinton trying to stick the attacks on Hillary with Swift Boat imagery. What really killed Kerry — you know, the Swift Boats were one thing, and they were right on the money, and nobody has disproven anything they claimed in any of their ads, statements, written commentaries, or anything of the sort. What really killed Kerry was the flip-flopper thing — ‘I voted for it before I voted against it.’ And that’s what’s got Hillary on this driver’s license thing. That and the way they’re trying to cover it up. You combine the fact that she flip-flopped (which we’re going to show you again here in a minute, let you hear) and now that they’re to come out and blame everybody else for piling on her, this is not the stuff of future presidents. Let’s go back. I want to go to this on the record one more time, how this all started. It was October 30th, the day before Halloween, and it happened right here on this program. I said this.
RUSH: The next day in Philadelphia — it was October 29th, then, that I made the original statement — on Tuesday, October 30th, in Philadelphia, Drexel University, Tim Russert said, ‘Senator Clinton, the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has proposed giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. He told the Nashua, New Hampshire, editorial board it makes a lot of sense. Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver’s license, Mrs. Clinton?’
HILLARY: Well, what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. We know in New York, we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others, is just a matter of the odds. It’s probability. So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum.
RUSH: Now, Chris Dodd then disagrees, and Hillary jumps in and flip-flops. Russert said, ‘Does anyone here, anyone on this panel believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver’s license?’
DODD: The idea that we’re going to extend this privilege here of a driver’s license, I think, is troublesome. The license is a privilege, and that ought not to be extended, in my view.
HILLARY: Well, I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it —
DODD: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
HILLARY: — and we have failed. We have failed!
DODD: No, no, no. You said yes. (laughs)
HILLARY: No.
DODD: You said yes. You thought it made sense to do it.
HILLARY: No, I didn’t, Chris.
RUSH: Yes, she did! So that’s what got all of this started. She was humiliated. She was embarrassed. She flip-flopped. She did a Kerry. Nobody has to Swiftboat her! All ‘Swiftboating’ is, by the way, is telling the truth about somebody, generally telling the truth about a Democrat. Well, this caused great ramifications in the Clinton household, ladies and gentlemen. Our microphones were there.
(Playing of Bill-Hillary spoof.)
RUSH: We’ll see if the rehearsals help out in the next debate. Meanwhile, this is Monday in Las Vegas, Clinton addressing the American postal workers annual conference. Here’s a portion of his remarks.
CLINTON: The point I’m here to make to you is, whoever you’re for, this is a really big election. We saw what happened the last seven years when we made decisions in elections based on trivial matters, when we listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President Gore was too stiff.
RUSH: He is.
RUSH: It was true.
CLINTON: When there was an ad that defeated Max Cleland in Georgia, a man that left half his body in Vietnam. So they put an ad on comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
RUSH: They did not!
CLINTON: Why am I saying this? Because I had the feeling, at the end of that last debate, we were about to get into cutesy land again.
RUSH: Yes, Swiftboating! Hillary was Swiftboated. That’s what got it all started. That’s what caused Obama to say, that’s really strange, because it was Democrats attacking a Democrat. Other Democrat opponents, and Drive-By Media guy, Russert, you know, ‘Swiftboating’ is when Republicans lie about Democrats. So the left-wing Drive-By Media on Hardball, they had a reaction to the Swift Boat comment. We’ve got Mike Barnicle here and Lois Romano from the Washington Post about Clinton’s Swift Boat comment.
MATTHEWS: You know what? When she said, ‘I’m your girl’ at that labor, uh, debate out in Chicago — when she said, ‘I’m your girl’ — I that that was the best line. That was Cat Ballou. That was the hot chick — I’m sorry, the hot woman — doing something well, saying, ‘I could beat those guys.’
VOICES: (laughing)
MATTHEWS: But when she gets her husband to come in like this big teddy bear saying, ‘Leave my wife alone,’ everybody says, ‘Wait a minute. She’s running for leader of the world, and you’re going to defend her? Stop it,’ and now you have Bill —
ROMANO: He’s the first defender.
MATTHEWS: I wonder whether he wants her to win or not or he just wants to look like he wants her to win.
RUSH: Yeeeees. See, there it is. I knew this was bubbling up under the surface out there, ‘I wonder whether he wants her to win or not, or he just wants to look like he wants her to win.’ You know, they’ve got a point here. Hillary can’t defend herself, gotta send Bill out there to the postal workers union in Las Vegas to say that she is being Swiftboated. So at that time frame on Monday, they’re still playing this card: ‘She’s a girl. You can’t hit the girl.’ Ann Lewis was on MSNBC Live yesterday with David Shuster, who said, ‘Former President Clinton said in Nevada he’s talking about the driver’s license dust-up, and started comparing this to the way Kerry got Swiftboated. So, Ann Lewis, do you believe that Hillary Clinton is being Swiftboated?’
LEWIS: I believe that in the 2008 elections we’re going to see attacks from the other side, from the Republican Party, that will be very similar to what we saw in 2004, and every Democrat —
SHUSTER: But that’s not what President Clinton was talking about yesterday.
LEWIS: No, but I think — let me do it this way then. Attacks that get personal and attacks that go beyond the issues that are at stake and attacks that, frankly, unfairly do not give the other person an opportunity to answer, yeah, I think that is what he was he was talking about.
RUSH: Okay. Now they’ve gotta re-characterize what Clinton was saying because they can’t let this Swift Boat thing survive because it didn’t work. So now they try to put new words in Clinton’s mouth, and words in his mouth are not what he’s interested in.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, we just got three more bites and then we’re going to get to your phone calls, but we’re going to close the loop on this Hillary thing. These bites are of Mrs. Clinton on CNN, the Situation Room yesterday, last night, and in these three bites you will hear how she’s still discombobulated about all this, was totally, totally taken off-track by the question on illegal aliens getting driver’s licenses in New York. First question from Candy Crowley: ‘What’s your reaction to the criticism that you’ve gotten and all this sort of thing from that flip-flop answer that you gave?’
RUSH: No, you’ve not, that’s the whole point, that’s why you’re in trouble. You’ve not been clear about anything. Those of us who know Mrs. Clinton know exactly what her agenda is. It is government control of as much of life in this country as possible. That’s the agenda. She can’t say that. Why do you think she scaled back the health care proposal to something like ten pages to make it look like it’s less onerous and intrusive than it is? It’s to scam. The whole thing is a sham. Who, by the way, is counting the number of questions that she’s answered over the last ten months? How do they get to the figure 5,000? She just throws the number out there. Still refuses to answer the question in the next bite, Candy Crowley says, ‘Driver’s licenses for illegals, you’ve said you broadly support what the governors are doing. Well, let me narrow the question down. If I wrote a story that said, absent a broad illegal immigration bill, Hillary Clinton agrees about giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, is that correct?’
HILLARY: No. What I said is that I support what the governor is trying to do, and governors are on the front lines because of the failures to get comprehensive immigration reform. There are already eight states that issue driver’s licenses without any verification of citizenship. That’s a decision that the governors, and legislatures, and the people of those states have made. I understand —
CROWLEY: But it’s just the way people think that you’re not answering the question.
HILLARY: Well, but I think that if you go back and look at the complexity of this issue, I don’t think a lot of these hard questions lend themselves to raising your hand, and I know that that’s easier in a 30-second, you know, context to try to do.
RUSH: So Clinton’s telling her what to say. It was Clinton himself the other day that said, (doing Clinton impression) ‘These things, they’re just too complicated, Limbaugh, you can’t answer a question like that in 30 seconds, I mean it doesn’t lend itself to a sound bite. You know that.’ So here’s Clinton out there saying — it is a sound bite — ‘It’s too complex, Candy.’ She is now trying to slough this off on the governors. She is not answering the question. She still will not tell us which side is really true, because she’s answered it both ways. Is she in favor of illegals getting driver’s licenses or not? She will not say. So the next question, ‘Well, you said after the debate, ‘I don’t think that all those men came after me because I’m a woman, but because I’m the front-runner.’ Yet you have — there are two people out there who support you, Geraldine Ferraro, Eleanor Smeal, who said it looked like the Anita Hill hearings; this is sexism. So this is a mixed message. It’s the sort of thing that people look at and say: You know, the Clinton campaign wants to have it both ways.’
HILLARY: I know that in a campaign where people are trying to score political points, and I am ahead, I’m going to be attacked. That’s what happens in campaigns. I don’t have any problem with that. If they want to use their energy attacking me, that’s their choice. I’m going to use my energy focusing on a new energy policy and so much else. I’m not running anybody else’s campaign. And I love what Harry Truman said. ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,’ and I’m really comfortable in the kitchen.
RUSH: Uh, I tell you, folks, that’s as specious as the Ann Lewis sound bite we played mere minutes ago talking about personal attacks. What was the personal attack here? ‘Mrs. Clinton, you seem to have said two different things.’ See, with the Clintons, any criticism from anyone is a personal attack. But these two things, these last two bites, the biggest non-answers that you can imagine, and it’s all because she doesn’t dare tell anybody what she really thinks. In fact, she even flip-flopped here, trying to have it both ways. Those attacks weren’t because I’m a woman, but don’t forget I’m a woman. That last line, ‘and I’m really comfortable in the kitchen?’ So, no, those attacks weren’t because I’m a woman, but don’t forget, I’m a woman. When was she in the kitchen? When was she last in the kitchen?
Steve in Lakeland, Florida, you’re next as we go back to the phones. Nice to have you with us on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Mega dittos from Lakeland, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, I had an issue, every time I hear this experience thing with Hillary, you know, I’ve been married for a lot of years and been in the same field of work, and I don’t know how my wife could claim to be experienced in what I do. She can’t put it on her résumé. How does she get away with that?
RUSH: Well, because she was in the White House and everybody knows that she was co-running the show.
CALLER: But do we really know unless we open up the archives?
RUSH: Look, who do you think picked Janet Reno for the attorney general? Hillary Clinton. Who do you think picked Jamie Gorelick? Hillary Clinton. Who do you think was given the task to nationalize one-seventh of the US economy? Hillary Clinton. Who was it that stage-managed and produced the Paula Jones lawsuit and botched it? Hillary Clinton. Who was it that was in charge of the bimbo eruptions for 35 years? That’s her experience, primarily. She has been in charge of making sure that all the women who have come forward, or who were planning on it, got trashed and discredited. There are certain things that we know and certain things that because of what we know we just have to accept. Does your wife go to work with you every day?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: No. If your business was in your home and your wife was part of it, then you’d have to say she has some experience. Look, all I’m telling you about these documents, if there’s something in there that really showed her off well, they would get them out. The idea that they’re not getting them out, and that they’re dragging their feet, is causing people to have suspicions that there are things in there she doesn’t want people to see. When that type of speculation starts there’s really no stopping it, until they decide to deal with it directly.