RUSH: All right, to the audio sound bites involving the hearings with Sonia Sotomayor. This is very important, actually. It’s a lifetime appointment that will affect this nation for decades. Sotomayor will be involved in rulings that impact the next generation. And I don’t care about flash polls. I don’t care what Chuck-U Schumer says. What I care about is that Obama has nominated a radical who reflects his beliefs. Remember, the importance of these hearings. Like Lindsey Graham is out there saying, ‘Well, she’s probably going to make it barring the meltdown.’ Well, then why do the hearings, Lindsey? Look, there’s politics here. This woman… If done right — and the Republicans got off to a good start today — these hearings could help inform the country about who Barack Obama is because this woman, Sonia Sotomayor, is a reflection.
She is a radical. She reflects the beliefs of Barack Obama, including his own racial attitudes. Conservatives and Republicans must not only expose her but they have to vote against her. This empathy business? Empathy is another word for activism. Sessions was great on that today. The truth is that a judge who uses empathy to rule is not empathetic. This is the interesting thing. Empathy means that you’re able to feel the circumstances of other persons. It’s not sympathy. You don’t have to feel sorry for them. You empathize, you relate to them, you understand the hard times they’ve had in their lives.
A judge who uses empathy to rule is not empathetic. Sotomayor is abusing her position to punish someone because of their race or their income, which has nothing to do with justice. This is perverse. ‘Empathy’ means you understand who’s been disadvantaged for whatever reasons and then you go after them, and you give them preference and weight. She’s an affirmative action judge. Call it whatever you want. Now, the Democrats want to make this all about Sotomayor versus me. We have a spot, a new ad run by a liberal Latina organization called ‘Presente Action.’ They have a website called DenunciaRush.com. DenunciaRush.com and they’re running these radio ads in Florida against John Mica and Adam Putnam.
ANNOUNCER (translated from Spanish): Sonia Sotomayor is set to be the first Latina, and Puerto Rican, to serve on the US Supreme Court. It is a proud moment for our community. Yet Republican leaders insist on attacking her:
RUSH ARCHIVE: She doesn’t have any intellectual depth. She’s an angry woman. She’s a bigot. She’s a racist.
ANNOUNCER (translated from Spanish): That’s Republican leader Rush Limbaugh calling Judge Sotomayor a racist and a bigot. It’s insulting to all Latinos and Americans. We asked Republican Congressman John Mica if he would denounce Limbaugh’s words. His response? Silence. Let’s put a stop to the hate. Call Congressman Mica (R-FL) today. 407-657-8080. Tell him to condemn this language.
RUSH: Must have hit home on that one if they’re running ads out there trying to denounce — they’ve got a whole website called DenunciaRush.com because I called her a ‘racista,’ a ‘racista and a bigot,’ and they’re taking that… By the way, I sounded pretty good in that sound bite, don’t you think? I’m the only one in English in the whole bite, but you get the drift here. The last line of this: ‘We asked Republican Congressman John Mica if he would denounce Limbaugh’s words. His response? Silencio.’ Silence. So from that we were able to glean how Pat ‘Depends — Leaky Depends’ Leahy would open the hearings today.
LEAHY: Unfortunately some have sought to twist her words and her record and to engage in partisan political attacks. Ideological pressure groups began attacking her even before the president made his selection. They then stepped up their attacks by threatening Republican senators who do not oppose her. That’s not the American way, and that should not be the Senate way.
RUSH: Jeez.
LEAHY: I think we have a high responsibility to base any criticism we have on a fair and honest statement of the facts, and that nomination not be subjected to distortions of their records.
RUSH: This is just absurd. I mean, this is a guy that seeks to destroy every Republican nominee that comes up there. ‘It’s not the American way. It’s not the Senate way.’ Partisan political attacks? Here’s the woman comes out and says a wise Latina would rule better than an average white guy. Her ruling was overturned, the Ricci firemen ruling in New Haven, Connecticut. During these hearings all the senators get their open statement. Sotomayor still hasn’t said a word. She’s just sitting there beaming, and not beaming when the Republicans are speaking (except for Lindsey Grahamnesty) and these blowhards are going through their opening statements and telling everybody how important they are. They’re creating sound bites for their reelection efforts. Here’s Russ Feingold. Now, Cookie, who put the audio sound bites together, is convinced Feingold was talking about me even though they don’t even mention my name.
FEINGOLD: I’m glad, however, that Judge So-to-may-or will finally have an opportunity to answer some of the unsubstantiated charges that have been made against her. One attack that I find particularly shocking is the suggestion that she will be biased against some litigants because of her racial and ethnic heritage. This charge is not based on anything in her judicial record, because there’s absolutely nothing in the hundreds of opinions she has written to support it. That long record which is obviously the most relevant evidence we have to evaluate her, demonstrates a cautious and careful approach to judging. Instead, a few lines from a 2001 speech taken out of context, have prompted some to charge she’s a racist.
RUSH: Uh-huh. And she is. She’s racist and she’s bigoted. Look, if words still mean things, then she is. ‘A wise Latina would be far better’ to make judgments because of her ‘rich background’ as a wise Latina than your average white guy, an average white male. Now, we may not want to face the hard reality of the definitions of words but there’s no other way to characterize what she’s talking about. Also, he says here that there’s nothing in her judicial record to support this. Well, what about being overturned all these times by the Supreme Court? What about the Ricci case that was just overturned? She didn’t even delve into the constitutional issues of that case. She simply decided against the white firefighters. There’s no question what the woman is. She reflects the racial anger, attitude that Obama has. They both have used that anger to advance themselves throughout their careers. Next up, it was Dianne Feinstein from San Francisco, and they had a little problem here in the middle of Feinstein.
FEINSTEIN: Everything in your record to indicate you —
MAN: (shouting)
LEAHY: (banging gavel)
MAN: (shouting)
LEAHY: The Senate…! The Senate will…! The — the police will remove that man! Let me make very clear: There will be no outbursts allowed in this committee either for or against the nominee, either for or against any position that Senator Sessions or I or any other Senator will have. This is a hearing of the United States Senate. We will have order and we will have decorum.
RUSH: Now, this bite — because the screaming starts and the gavel pounds and Leahy starts yelling — you can’t hear everything that the abortion protester said, but what he said was, ‘Stop the genocide of unborn Latinos.’ He was a ponytail guy. He looked Hispanic, but I don’t know. But he was screaming, ‘What about abortions? Stop the genocide of unborn Latinos,’ and that’s when they jumped into gear and they got the guy out of there. A little fireworks early on. Here’s Jeff Sessions laying out what the hearing is all about.
SESSIONS: Our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is a traditional American system so admired around the world where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views. This is the compassionate system because it’s the fair system. In the American legal system courts do not make law or set policy, because allowing unelected officials to make law will strike at the heart of our democracy. Down the other path lies a Brave New World where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. In this world, a judge is free to push his or her own political or social agenda. I reject that view and Americans reject that view.
RUSH: That’s Jeff Sessions, the Republican leader on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was good, and all that followed. They were all that followed. They’re pretty unified with all this. Before we go to the break, he was so good. The State-Run Media had to rebut Sessions, and what we have here, this is Matthews. Chrissy! Chris Matthews talking with Richard Wolffe of Newsweek. ‘This fight between Republicans, Democrats today across the board, you’re saying,’ O wise one?
WOLFFE: It’s not just about Sotomayor. This is a proxy battle about President Obama. Does he represent core American values? Can you trust his woooord? Is he in league with some foreign power? This is codeword for stuff that we all know circulates on the extreme of the conservative movement. This is —
MATTHEWS: That somehow a world government is going to come into Nebraska —
WOLFFE: (clucking)
MATTHEWS: — or in Idaho and take away your guns and then take you away.
WOLFEE: Take away — or take away your private property for a shopping mall.
RUSH: I think that happened not in Nebraska. It happened in New London, Connecticut, did it not? Liberal enclave, did it not? Did not the Supreme Court take away someone’s home to build a shopping mall that has not been built? All right. Why would people be worried it could happen to them if it’s already happened in New London, Connecticut? Why would people be worried about that? Is that paranoia? Is that extremism? All right, quick time-out. We’re coming back. We’ve got more. Stay with us.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: we have crashed, ladies and gentlemen, we have crashed DenunciaRush.com. They are at the moment finito. DenunciaRush has been crashed. So Russ Feingold, a couple of words that Sonia Sotomayor said taken out of context. You mean like Macaca? George Allen saying Macaca? We heard about that for weeks and months as the Washington Post and the Democrats sought to destroy Allen. He’d been a congressman, a governor, and a senator. Sotomayor’s comments are much worse than Macaca, and they’re frequent, and they are long held. You see how this race thing works, folks. If you’re a liberal nothing you say can be held against you. And then Richard Wolffe, the British guy in the last sound bite, (muttering) ‘Take private property in Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, and open a shopping mall.’ Well, this is a guy that has written a kiss-up book on Obama, is a failure. Renegade is the book, number 217 on Amazon. Nobody is buying Richard Wolffe’s book and nobody is reading it. What do you think the G8 cap and trade and all the rest is about, Richard, you dunce? It’s about the transference of wealth. It’s about the redistribution of wealth. It is about the expansion of government and the loss of individual liberty. What do you think Kyoto and its success are all about?
These libs make no sense. They talk about being global citizens and sophisticated and urbane. When you call ’em on it then they call you a nut. Richard Wolffe, yeah, it’s Richard Wolffe who wrote the Obama book, Renegade, number 217 on Amazon. I don’t know what it is in Coeur d’Alene, Iowa. 217. I don’t know what it is in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was just a slip of the tongue. Coming up, Colin Powell, this was last Sunday when I was already on the golf trip. But we told you we had the preview of what he was going to say because CNN was using it to promote their Sunday show, State of the Union, and he chimed in on me and called me a nonelected official, a problem for the Republican Party and so forth.