RUSH: You know, this is amazing. It’s actually not amazing. That’s too much of a cliche. But I guess it’s fair to say even after 20-plus years I’m still surprised by things. I have been, the past couple of days, getting e-mails from Drive-By Media members and all of a sudden in both e-mail accounts (the members e-mail address at RushLimbaugh.com and the public e-mail address), ‘Liz Cheney? Liz Cheney? How come you’re not talking about Liz Cheney? Does Liz Cheney embarrass you with this Al-Qaeda 7 business? How come you’re not talking about Liz Cheney, hmm?’ My first reaction is, ‘What does it matter what I say about Liz Cheney?’ But then I realized: Nothing is said about Liz Cheney ’til I say it. Nothing is said about moving to Costa Rica unless I say it. Nothing is said about health care ’til I say it. When I say it, it’s been said. But it hasn’t been said unless I say it. So Liz Cheney. If you’re not aware of the controversy, Liz Cheney has a group that’s devoted to protecting America against foreign threats including terrorism.
Eric Holder is attempting to overthrow the US Department of Justice, along with Obama’s efforts to overthrow the United States as we’ve known it, as it was founded. Holder hired some lawyers to be in the Justice Department and like seven of them or nine of them, I forget the exact number, had defended detainees at Club Gitmo, where we still have a thriving licensed merchandise business. In producing a video about this, Liz Cheney’s group referred to these seven lawyers as ‘the Al-Qaeda 7,’ and everybody started having cows out there. ‘How dare she? The Al-Qaeda 7? These people are not defending people who want to blow up America!’ Well, they were. But now even people like Ken Starr are attacking Liz Cheney and others on the premise of, ‘Hey, look, even the biggest reprobate in the world deserves a defense, according to the US Constitution.’
That’s not what this is about! Nobody’s upset that these guys defended. What we’re curious about is why the hell did they end up in the Justice Department? How the hell did they end up in there and why won’t Holder tell us who they are? Bernie Goldberg had the greatest analogy of this that I’ve heard yet. I think it was Bernie Goldberg. He said, ‘Look, if this were the Bush administration, and any of his attorney generals had secretly put seven lawyers who had defended the Ku Klux Klan in the Justice Department Civil Rights Division and would not announce their names, do you think that the media and the Democrats would say, ‘Oh, yeah. Well, every client deserves a defense.” There is a fundamental argument going on in this country over the fact that we are threatened by militant Islamists who have made their intentions very clear and they’ve acted on them countless times, and — here’s the whole context — we have an administration that doesn’t appear to take the threat seriously!
We have an administration who, giving them the benefit of the doubt, believe that it’s partially our fault and that if we would just engage in some ‘outreach’ to the Islamists and show them that we have a great set of values here and the American dream is alive and well, and say, ‘No matter what you do to us, we will still tie both hands behind our back to be fair dealing with you,’ and until we do that we will not garner once again the respect of the world that was lost during the Bush years. Well, I don’t know if anybody’s seen the polls lately, but respect for the United States since Obama took over is plummeting! Now, as far as I know, nobody in the Liz Cheney organization is suggesting these people don’t deserve representation or lawyers. One thing that I’m confident in saying is that they should be tried in military tribunals and bringing them into civil courts in the United States is an absolute abomination of a mistake.
This administration has made it clear that they don’t have much interest in the defense of this country from this particular enemy, and so there are people that are very much concerned that that laxity on that issue be dealt with. So if Liz Cheney and her group want to call this bunch of Department of Justice lawyers ‘the Al-Qaeda 7,’ (snorts) fine with me. I wish I’d-a come up with it. What’s the difference in that and the Chicago Seven? What’s the difference in that and the FALN 32? I think it’s pretty clever, and it sure as hell got everybody’s attention, didn’t it? And everybody wants to know what I think about Liz Cheney. Well, now, you know, I would much rather have Liz Cheney and her group in charge of defending this country than Eric Holder, Barack Obama and that ‘sis,’ Janet Napolitano. I would much rather have Liz Cheney and anybody she knows at the Department of Justice as attorney general. I’d much rather have her at the State Department.
I’d much rather have her in the White House or anywhere, than any of these people. I’d rather have Sarah Palin there than Eric Holder. I’d rather have Sarah Palin there than Barack Obama. None of this is a mystery to me. People say, ‘Well, Sarah Palin, she’s so stupid!’ (snorts) Obama is a piercing light of intelligence?’ You know, that’s another good point. These same people — these same people, Eric Holder and whoever the hell else is in that Department of Justice with him and Obama — are trying to criminalize Bybee and John Yoo for the CIA interrogation techniques that led to the uncovering of the mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and what he did and buddies and so forth. They want to criminalize the interrogation process!
The way we look at it here we’ve got an administration who thinks the enemy is the United States of America, and so if we think that they think that the problem in the world is us, and they’re going to bring in lawyers that they won’t name to the DOJ who have defended pro bono — and Holder’s own firm about this, by the way, pro bono defense of Guantanamo detainees. If they’re going to bring ’em in there, then when you put everything together say, ‘Why? What’s the message? Are they more qualified to be in the DOJ because they’ve talked to these guys and they’ve had them as clients? Does it somehow give them a greater understanding of the enemy?’ If so, tell us. If that’s the reason, tell us that’s why you’re doing it. Tell us who they are. I mean, for crying out loud! The left will always tell us who scares the hell out of ’em, and right now Liz Cheney scares the hell out of them. They’ll always tell us. Paul Ryan, they’re going after him, folks. They’ve been going after Sarah Palin. They will always tell us who frighten them. So, am I embarrassed by what Liz Cheney’s done? No. I’m scared to death about what Obama and Holder are doing. Please!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Before we get to the phones, just one thing more here. Remember the Attorney General during Bush/Gonzales was excoriated for firing nine US attorneys for, quote, unquote, political reasons, and they tried once again to frog march Karl Rove into jail over it with never-ending investigations. And Bill Clinton fired all 93 — or whatever the number was in 1993 when he took office. This is something presidents do. Bush shoulda done this years before he did it. So we’re not supposed to notice that Eric Holder hired seven attorneys for really ugly political reasons and we’re not supposed to question it, given everything else we know about this administration’s thinking on foreign policy.