STARK: They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have money to fund the war or children, but you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we could get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.
RUSH: They have lost it. If there is any doubt, they have totally lost it. This is probably — I don’t know for sure, I’m going to speculate, since he brought children into this — that this is some debate, the speeches prior to the override vote on the SCHIP bill. Because he said, ‘You don’t have money to fund the war or children, but you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people, if we can get enough kids to grow old enough…’ meaning to hit 18, because they’re going to die because we’re not going to pass the SCHIP program, is the implication. ‘…for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.’ Since he didn’t single out any particular Republican by name, the remarks were not taken down. But he was talking about the Republicans — you gotta play this again. I know you want to hear this again. Listen to it again.
STARK: They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have money to fund the war or children, but you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we could get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.
RUSH: The National Republican Congressional Committee declared that he had trampled on the sacrifice of our troops with this comment. This guy — look, he’s long been a wacko. He’s from the Bay Area, long been a full-fledged, certifiable nutcase, probably shows up to the House in a little yellow bus every day and then goes back to the happy home at the end of the House session. This is who they are, folks. Now, I know a lot of people say, ‘Rush, this is not all Democrats. You can’t generalize like that.’ He is much closer to them than you might want to admit, much closer to them than you realize. He’s certainly a dead ringer for the people on their blogs out there that are yanking the chains, the kind of anti-war activists that Dingy Harry goes to see on a Monday night that nobody knows about ’til afterwards, that’s the way they think.
Those are the people telling Dingy Harry what they’re unhappy about, and these are the kind of people Dingy Harry has to try to keep happy. Same with Pelosi. Her complaining and whining the other day about all these protesters polluting her yard and her garden by hanging out there, she couldn’t get rid of them because they had ‘impeach Bush’ T-shirts on, which meant it was a free speech issue. Fortney ‘Pete’ Stark is one of those guys. I mean, he’s not out there on her lawn, but the way they think. These guys are brain-addled. This is Battered Liberal Syndrome. Maybe what’s happening here is this amoeba, or whatever this germ is that’s ravaging this country, has gotten into these people’s heads.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Dallas/Fort Worth, Mick, I’m glad you’ve been patient here today. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Ditto, Rush. I’ll get right to the point. I believe that another one of the unintended consequences of the Harry Reid letter is it’s going to serve to energize the Republican base. At least I know it has in my case. I was one of those Republican contributors that have, every time we would get a solicitation letter, throw it in the trash without even opening it up. But since the letter came out, I realize that there’s far more things important than the agenda I felt like that the Republicans have squandered, probably the best opportunity in my lifetime to get some conservative agenda items moved forward, but with Reid’s letter it shows me what raw abuse of power is and how dangerous it is, and some things come to mind is the IRS being used as Gestapo. But anyway, I feel like that his letter and the Democrats have done what the Republican leadership could not do, and that was to motivate me. I’m motivated, and I already sent the first one in, and I will continue.
RUSH: Well, you have made my day here. I can tell you mean that. You sound genuinely fired up here.
CALLER: I am and I don’t think I’m the only one that feels that way. I think there are a lot of us out there, that we’ve been disappointed by the Republican Party, by President Bush. Yes, I felt that he might potentially come close to Ronald Reagan. He was not. The Republicans in the Congress have just, you know, been sorely disappointing. And, yes, I feel that we’ve been betrayed, but I realize that there’s a lot worse we can do, and I hope that they, the people I’m going to send the money in to, get back on track and do what they had intended to do. They lost their way, as we all do sometimes.
RUSH: Well, that’s a good point. Let me ask, are you sending them money because you have been sort of slapped upside the head, seeing what kind of raw abuses of power may be ahead, if a Democrat wins the White House because of the Harry Reid letter?
CALLER: That’s exactly what I’m saying. It reminded me of what can happen when they were in power the last time, the abuses, and it can remind me what can happen again, only who knows to what extent, you know, controlling the presidency and both houses. It scares the hell out of me.
RUSH: Good, because it should. And that ought to be what the election is about. It’s not going to be about the war so much. It’s going to be about the future of the country and what kind of country we’re going to be.
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: And they’ve gotta make that case, and it’s going to be up to the Republican presidential nominee to make that case.
CALLER: Well, and I hope he does. I hope the right person does.
RUSH: Well, hang tough out there, friend. I’m happy you got fired back up. I have had some people theorize to me that this Harry Reid letter might energize the Republican base, and I hope so. I mean it would make total sense to me if that happened. Again, I appreciate that, Mick.
Here’s Ernest in Houston. Calls from Texas today. Hello, Ernest.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you so much for allowing me to say what I’m thinking right now, and airborne dittos, Rush. Thank you so much.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Rush, my whole point was basically this, that that congressman in California saying those negative things that he said, I mean, you made the point in reference to it’s a small population, in reference to voters, in reference to the military, okay? But he doesn’t realize that he’s insulting ex-military, like myself, and every soldier, every Marine, every military personnel out there, they have friends, they have people who know them in their community, and I guarantee you, that’s gotta burn them as well, make them very angry, because it makes me very angry to hear that.
RUSH: Ernest, let me tell you something. Here’s the dirty little secret. This guy is from San Francisco. He’s from the Bay Area. This reflects a lot of the thinking in that part of the country. He meant to say this. He is famous for going overboard on any number of subjects in the number of years that I have been familiar with Fortney ‘Pete’ Stark. But I’m going to tell you something, he meant to say this, he was proud that he said it, I’m sure. He may end up apologizing, but if he does, that’s what’s going to be phony. I think he’ll come back with another attack: ‘They’re trying to shut me up or make me apologize and so forth. If I have to apologize, then Limbaugh should apologize.’ That’s the way they do this, everything is a tit-for-tat. They’re just getting even for so-called extremism on the right. But I’ll tell you, this is exactly what he thinks. He holds the US military, and the president, and everybody that he referred to in that bite in total contempt.
CALLER: Yes, and I do realize that, Rush, and that’s wrong. These people who are Democrats, who are liberals, they’re bad people, as far as I’m concerned. They don’t have my best interests, you know —
RUSH: No, they don’t. They have their best interests —
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: — at heart, their best interests at heart, pure and simple. Well, Ernest, I’m glad you had a chance to call here. I’m glad you got through to vent. You feel better?
CALLER: Rush, thank you so much. Thank you.
RUSH: You bet. It’s my pleasure.