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 RUSH: I also got some e-mail today from people who are just fit to be tied over what they've heard about the Republicans in the Senate who are going to go ahead and try to pass the House get-out-of-Iraq bill as soon as they can. A lot of people say, "What do you mean? The Republicans selling out! You mean they're going to go along with this pork? That's why they lost in November, and, I'll tell you what, I'm never voting Republican again!" You people have to calm down out there. This is a brilliant tactical move here to move the House bill through the Senate quickly as possible, get the conferences and get it to the White House so it can get vetoed! The problem here is that the money for the Iraq war, the supplemental money that's needed will be needed by, I think, April the 15th. May 15th is really the crucial date. It starts on April 15th.
They don't have time to start debating this bill in the Senate and try to take out all the pork and the earmarks. By the way, I've been looking at this bill a little bit. It's the largest tax increase in American history, in parts of this bill. There's stuff in this bill that goes beyond just subsidizing a spinach farmer and other things. They've thrown all kinds of garbage in this thing. But there isn't time to try to strip all that out before you get a Senate vote on their version and go to conference. The whole idea here is to pass this thing as quickly as possible. Just get it out of the Senate. Get it to conference and get everybody agreeing on it as quickly as possible. Send it up to the White House for the promised veto and just relegate this thing to the ash heap.
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RUSH: Michael in St. James, Missouri, not far from St. Louis, we'll start with you today on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Hey, this funding bill for the war, all this pork barrel, it sounds just exactly like what was going to happen with the campaign finance reform bill of a few years back where Bush was counted on to veto it and he did not. I don't like that at all.
RUSH: Well, I understand your sentiments on this: "Fool me once, yeah. Fool me twice?" that old saying. But the president went out there last Friday, Michael, and he laid it on the line. He said this bill has no chance of becoming law. He pointed out that the victory margin in the House was by one vote (218 is the minimum you can get for victory) and he went out and he said there's no chance this bill is going to become law. He pointed out they don't have a veto-proof majority in either of the two houses, the House or the Senate, and he was pretty much inviting the veto. He was not nearly that forceful on campaign finance reform. In the campaign he led everybody to believe that he was against it, but as president he never invited the bill so he could veto it.
Snerdley tells me we have a lot of calls echoing the same sentiments, Michael, that you've raised here, but in this case, I would be stunned if we had a repeat of campaign finance reform. I don't think that's in the cards. This is Bush's issue. This is his defining issue. This is what he's built legacy and his protection of the country on, and he's not going to allow this thing that sets a date to get the troops home in March of 2008. He's simply not going to do it. I wouldn't be afraid of it this time. The reason for this, folks, is that the money is needed to keep the surge going and a number of other things going. I think not only should the Senate get this thing passed as quickly as they can and get it up there for a veto, I think when the president vetoes this, he ought to do it on a nationwide nighttime appearance from the Oval Office.
See, this is the point. He needs to do it with the whole country watching and he needs to go out there and explain it and teach it and tell everybody exactly what was in this bill, not just the withdrawal date, March 8, not just the $24 billion of pork in there for spinach and other people, but the tax increases. There are things in this bill, folks, that nobody knew until they started looking at it. Well, there's $100 million in this bill to spend on the two party conventions. A hundred million dollars to fund the two party conventions this summer, in addition to everything else. President Bush has a great opportunity here when the veto arrives, to do a great educational seminar. He probably won't do it prime-time. I wish he would, but whenever, it's going to be a great opportunity to tell the American people what was in this.
 I would go even further. If I were the White House, I would stage my own little production and I'd get all these pictures of smiling Nancy Pelosi after they passed this bill. She was happy just because they got the bill passed. She finally got something done out of the disarray of the Democrat caucus in the House of Representatives. But as he's going through the list of all the things this bill would do: secure defeat in March of 2008, raise taxes, pay a hundred billion dollars for the two party conventions, $25 million to a spinach farmer in California, just have Pelosi's smiling face up at the same time. If I had my TV show, that's what I would do. I don't know if the White House can go that far.
By the way, speaking of all of this. "In one of the more unusual proposals to emerge in the Senate debate on Iraq withdrawal, Sen. Mark Pryor wants to keep any plans for bringing troops home a secret. The Arkansas Democrat is a key holdout on his party's proposal to approve $122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a goal of March 31, 2008, for winding up military operations in Iraq. Unlike the plan's Republican opponents, Pryor wants a withdrawal deadline of some kind. He just doesn't want anyone outside the White House, Congress and the Iraqi government to know what it is.
"'My strong preference would be to have a classified plan and a classified timetable that should be shared with Congress,' Pryor said yesterday. A public deadline would tip off the enemy, 'who might just bide their time and wait for us to leave,' he said. 'Then you'd have chaos and mayhem and instability.'" Mark, Senator Pryor, how long do you think it would take for this date to leak? This is absurd. A senator is actually suggesting a piece of legislation that has a secret withdrawal date that only the White House and the House and Senate know about -- which would bring about his genuine fear because the date would leak out.
Members of Congress know it and it's going to stay a secret? Fat chance! |
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RUSH: Snerdley reports getting a lot of phone calls from people who remember that they thought the president was going to veto the campaign finance bill and didn't. He sent it up to Supreme Court and let the Supreme Court "fix it" and the Supreme Court (laughing) authorized it. We got saddled with it, and as I pointed out yesterday in a brilliant morning update, all that campaign finance reform did was get Republicans out of office. (I don't know why I laugh at that. It's not funny.) Nevertheless, the president has been forceful on this, and people are upset here that the Senate's going to go ahead and pass the House bill almost intact. Interestingly, though, McCain said he's going to leave the campaign trail to go back to the Senate and vote against it. Now, that's interesting because here's the Senate plan. The Senate plan, the Republican plan, is to just go ahead and vote for everything those idiots in the House voted for and get it done so that the conference committee between the House and the Senate can get to work and send the bill up to the president, which will be pretty much what the House bill was, so we can veto it and veto it in a very public ceremony that will contain a lot of education and information for the American people on what the hell is in this bill and why he's vetoing it. It's a great opportunity here. A lot of people are scared to death. "Oh, no! What if the president goes back on his word and doesn't veto it?" I understand why you feel that way. Now, McCain is going to go back. He's going to leave the campaign. (I think I read he's got an appearance in Florida.) He's going to go back and vote on it. It might not be Florida. I don't know where he is. Now, that's interesting because that gives you a little insight on what presidential candidates think they have to do. If he votes for the bill, he's very much worried that these guys who are not in the Senate like Romney and Giuliani can make a campaign commercial on the fact that McCain voted for $24 billion of pork and force McCain out there (McCain impression), "I supported the president! It's, it's, it's a plus to me!" Of course you know how people are. They pay attention to the first charge. They never hear the explanation of it. So McCain may be forced to vote against this when Senate colleagues are voting for it. Anyway, Helen Thomas, at the White House press briefing today with Dana Perino sitting in for Tony Snow, asked, "How does the president feel about the Senate Republicans leaving him holding the bag on a veto on the Iraq pullout?" PERINO: I read a report this morning that indicated that somehow the Senate Republicans were defying the president. Actually, that's not the case. In fact, last week when the president met with the Senate Republican leadership. They talked about needing to go ahead and get this vote over with and get the bill to the president's desk so he could veto it so that they could go on and get to the business of presenting the president a clean bill. THOMAS: It was planned? PERINO: If you look through the president's remarks on Friday, he indicated that. RUSH: Helen Thomas thinks it's a conspiracy now! It's a conspiracy, folks, because Bush met with the Senate Republicans and they planned something. They did it in secret, and now the White House press secretary has made it known. "It was a plan? Really? Well, who could we subpoena on that? Who could we bring up and make 'em take the fifth on that?" So I offer this sound bite here, just a little reassurance for you people out there worried that the president would not veto it. I think he clearly wants to. I think he'd like to veto it today, to tell you the truth.
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