RUSH: I just saw something on Fox. Let me tell you a little story: Snerdley came in here today. He and I’ve had a back-and-forth over Mitch McConnell, over whether McConnell’s gonna cave on Obama Supreme Court’s’ Supreme Court choice to replace Scalia. And I told Snerdley what I’ve told everybody: “When McConnell first spoke up about this, he said ‘should not,’ ‘Obama should not, and we ‘should not,'” meaning the Senate, “‘confirm anybody, given presidential year.'” And I pointed out: “He did not say ‘would not.’ He said ‘should not.’ That’s Republican establishment wiggle room.”
And Snerdley, who so desperately wants to believe — like many of you, probably so desperately want to believe — that something will give these people backbone, and it may be the Supreme Court who does it. So desperate. So Snerdley has been constantly singing Mitch McConnell’s praises to me. So he walks in here today: “I gotta tell you, Rush: Mitch is hanging tough out there! He’s hanging tough. He said there aren’t gonna be any hearings.” I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what did Grassley say?”
Snerdley says, “Well, I haven’t heard anything Grassley said. Grassley hasn’t said anything in a while.” Okay, so that’s about a half hour before the program. Well, during the break while I was putting myself back together from my emotional distress listening to Chelsea, I saw a little graphic on TV that said that Chuck Grassley has decided to invoke the “Biden Rules,” and there will not be any hearings on a nomination that Obama might put forth. And I said, “Hallelujah!” Now, that’s just today.
We’re talking about the establishment, RINO Republicans in many cases. It could change tomorrow. But it’s clever. Grassley actually said he’s invoking the Biden Rules. What are the Biden Rules? Well, it’s very simple. Audio sound bite number six: June 25, 1992, in Washington on the Senate floor. Here’s Senator Biden saying that President George H. W. Bush should not appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year.
BIDEN: It is my view that if the president goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and [Andrew] Johnson and presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over. It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway — and it is — action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over. That is what is fair to the nominee and essential to the process. Otherwise it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution.
RUSH: Right, right, right., “We’ll be in deal trouble as an institution.” What deep trouble? Anyway what’s going on here, it’s George H. W. Bush’s last year, and the Democrats — political animals they — are intimidating and trying to bully 41 into nominating nobody for Supreme Court vacancy in his final year for all the reasons that you heard Biden enunciate there. And Grassley today said, “Hey, you know what? That sounded good to me.
“I’m going to invoke the Biden Rules.” Now, there probably aren’t any “Biden Rules” formally established. He’s just referring to this sound bite as the “Biden Rules.” Now, I pointed out way back… In fact, let’s go back February 15th, about eight days on this program when we first learned of the death of Scalia and the Democrats saying we cannot let this election year stop us from making nominations.
Everybody pointed out how Schumer and all these other Democrats, including Obama, had said that during an election year — a president’s last year in office — they should not nominate Supreme Court justices, shouldn’t happen. Democrats on the record. It was blatant hypocrisy, and I remind everybody that it doesn’t matter. You can’t humiliate them, you can’t embarrass them, you can point out their hypocrisy all day long, and it’s not going to have one iota’s impact. Here is audio sound bite number four. This exactly what I said…
BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP
RUSH ARCHIVE: Pointing out what Chuck Schumer said back in 2007 and saying that the Democrats, to be consistent, ought to be saying that Obama shouldn’t be appointing justices? Are you kidding me? … So you go to Chuck Schumer and say, “Hey, Chuck, you’re being a little hypocritical. You think Obama should be able to appoint a justice right here, right now. But in 2007, you said Bush shouldn’t.”
“Different circumstance,” he’ll say. “The Iraq war, massively unpopular, massively unpopular president. The polls were in; the country hated George Bush. The country hated everything George Bush was doing. But Obama is beloved and Obama is still loved and adored and supported and so forth, and it’s not the same thing,” and he’ll tell you he’s not being hypocrite, that he’s putting the country first.
And you’ll be left with, “Uh, what did he just say?” That’s what he’s gonna do. That’s what they’ll all do! They’re not gonna let hypocrisy trap ’em. You can point it out all day long. It’s not gonna be of any value whatsoever in this fight. Pointing out Democrat hypocrisy never helps. Republicans get hoisted on their own petard with it. That’s part of the double standard: Pointing out hypocrisy on the Republicans can nail them, but not the Democrats. That’s just the way it is.
END ARCHIVE CLIP
RUSH: Okay, so Schumer and now Biden — and there have been many others — have directly, blatantly directly contradicted themselves on this, and Schumer was asked about it yesterday in Washington on Capitol Hill, and he was speaking with reporters about the Supreme Court vacancy, and then Biden’s call not to approve any nominees during a presidential election. People had unearthed that. So a reporter says, “So, Senator Chuck Schumer, do you think Biden’s 1992 remarks are damaging to your argument?”
SCHUMER: No. Look, the simple answer to this, which everyone is saying everywhere is, do your job. Doesn’t matter what anyone, what people said in the past.
REPORTER: What about what you said?
SCHUMER: We should do our job.
RUSH: It doesn’t matter what we said in the past. What we said in the past was about that moment, and this is now, that was then, and we’re gonna get what we want whenever it is, whatever year, we’re gonna get what we want. We got a Democrat president. We got a chance to own the Supreme Court for 25 years and snooker you conservatives, schlong you people left and right for 25 years and we’re gonna do it.
“But what about what you said back in…”
“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. We gotta do our jobs.”
So I’m telling you the hypocrisy argument, don’t rely on it to stop ’em. It isn’t gonna stop ’em. And it’s not gonna persuade people to abandon the Democrats. You can’t embarrass their supporters to abandon them. Just isn’t gonna happen. It’s interesting to point it out, make good sound bites, but it’s not gonna happen.
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