RUSH: We’ll start with Darla in Bellingham, Washington. Hi, Darla, nice to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I tell you, I’m so… I’m so… I can hardly talk. I am so upset about this Scott McClellan book. I — I have children and grandchildren that I have to try to protect in our great nation. And here for a buck, for payback, I don’t care what it is. He can’t wait ’til the president’s out of office? We have to do things, and, of course, he has more credence because he’s known, quote, unquote, the president longer than many so he comes out with this trashy crap in this book that gives to the haters of this country, the terrorists of the world. If it makes our news media wonder if the president’s going to comment on it while he’s trying to give a speech to a graduating class then, oh, it must be that important, well, if they say it and it emboldens them — and it always does embolden them — well, does it make the country safer? Where is the patriotism in this country? I can certainly say it. We have lost our soul. Scott, you’re a citizen of the country first. If it’s payback to the president, fine. Is it payback to me? Is it payback to my family, too? Do you have to make the buck first? (voice breaking) I am sorry I sound upset but, Rush, that’s just — I — I — I don’t get it. I’m — I’m fed up. Where is the patriotism in this country? Where? Why have we decided that we don’t just have to hate the president, we have to hate our country, we have to hate what it stands for, we have to put our desire for money and our 15 minutes of fame above everything?
RUSH: Don’t forget power —
CALLER: Power!
RUSH: — which is what this is all about.
CALLER: It is, Rush. Where is our patriotism? Do you think it has to do with Scott can’t write this book after President Bush is out of power because he won’t make as much money?
RUSH: I don’t —
CALLER: You think so?
RUSH: No. I don’t think it’s that. It’s possible. I don’t pretend to know. I don’t know this guy personally. I may have met him, glancing blow, walking someplace. I don’t remember meeting him. My only memory of him is watching him work, and I wasn’t that impressed with his job as a press secretary. I thought he had deer-in-the-headlight eyes all the time and was just fodder. I thought the press ate him up, chewed him up, spit him out each and every day. But, look, I want to go back to what you said, because, you know, what you said is so damn right on the money, and I want to try to explain it to you, or answer your question in a way that is not going to satisfy you, but I’m convinced. Everybody that I’ve heard that did know Scott McClellan says they never heard him say a word like this the whole time he was in the White House. He never objected to anything about Hurricane Katrina when it was happening. He never objected to the Scooter Libby stuff. He never objected to the constant campaign. All of these complaints, all of these criticisms, nobody that worked with him claims he had that much access to know these kind of things, and they never heard him object to any of it — and of course he didn’t resign in a pique of honor and dignity. I think as good a guess as anybody else will have… You know, I trace everything back to liberalism because the answer to every question you asked in that great, impassioned comment that you made, the answer to every question, ‘What’s happened to our patriotism?’ Liberalism.
CALLER: Oh, I’m sick of it.
RUSH: Why do we have to have hatred for the country as well as hatred for the president? Liberalism. Liberalism is the greatest threat the country, as we have known it, faces. I’m convinced — I don’t know who published this book. It doesn’t matter. But I’m convinced that somebody got hold of McClellan and convinced him he could make a lot of money. Maybe he was very, very upset at being fired — which he was. And maybe there’s a little payback in him and maybe there’s, ‘Okay, I’m going to get you! You did this to me. You humiliate me by firing me? Fine.’ The truth of the matter is, the president carried this guy out of loyalty far longer than he should. The president was not well served by this guy, and this is evidence. So I think somebody at the publishing company got to him. Have you heard all these people saying, ‘This doesn’t sound like the Scott McClellan we knew’?
CALLER: Then it’s about money.
RUSH: I don’t deny that. Always follow the money.
CALLER: Well, that’s the answer —
RUSH: Here’s the thing. I’ll tell you what it’s also about, Darla. It’s about the presidential campaign. You wonder why he couldn’t wait ’til Bush is outta office? This is designed to skewer John McCain. This is designed to really give him credibility problems because now, you know, he’s the guy that they’re calling Bush 3 and his nickname now from the left is ‘McSame’ because they’re trying as hard as they can to convince American voters that four more years of McCain is just four more years of Bush. And so —
CALLER: Well, we’re going to wake up in this country one day, Rush, and it isn’t going to be a free country anymore.
RUSH: Amen! I’ve been —
CALLER: We’re on a slippery slope right now, and if we don’t get, if the people in this country don’t get their heads screwed on straight, and I would advise — I know this sounds melodramatic, and I don’t care. Look into the eyes of your children and your grandchildren every day and make the conscious decision, ‘Do I want to live under tyranny, do I want to live under the great freedoms of this nation — or not?’
RUSH: Here’s the problem. And I don’t know how extensive it is, but it does have me concerned when I see Republicans caving left and right, joining Democrats — at least their ideas — and adopting their language, and it’s happening all too frequently. My concern is these people operate by polls. My concern is, what percentage. American people doesn’t see the country the way you do and I do? How many people in this country think, ‘You know what? It’s so unfair out there. The oil execs are making this, and we’re at war there and all these other people are getting rich, and I can’t have health care. I need government. I need government to be my insurance policy.’ If people are willing to look favorably upon an ever-expanding government that they think is benevolent, then they’re going to… You’ve heard the old saw about how easy it is to trade freedom for security.
CALLER: Well, if all they have to hope for is that the government’s going to take care of it, here was a servant, Scott McClellan that worked in the government, that couldn’t complain. He couldn’t blow the whistle, couldn’t do any of these things while he was serving in his government —
RUSH: Yes, he could.
CALLER: — but afterward waits to write a book.
RUSH: Yes, he could have.
CALLER: — then obviously… Yes, he could have, but he didn’t. If this is the great government that people think are going to take care of them, take another look.
RUSH: Well, see, that’s the frustrating thing. You don’t have to look at McClellan. Look at the failure of the war on poverty. Look at the failure of Medicare. Look at the failure of Medicaid. Look at the failure of AFDC. Look at the failure of the Great Society. Everything the liberals do fails. And they try to say, ‘Well, don’t judge us on our results. Judge us on our great big hearts and our good intentions.’ Everything they do they destroy! This global warming business, you want to talk about an encroachment on freedom. Try this. This is a story from the UK. It’s in the Daily Mail. ‘Every adult should be forced to use a carbon ration card when they pay for petrol, airline tickets, or household energy, say members of parliament.’ Now, we, Darla, have just had polls last week from UK citizens who are fed up with these new taxes to stop greenhouse gases and the carbon footprint. They are paying through the nose already, and they haven’t noticed any improvement in the environment and the naysayers and the scaremongers are still saying, ‘We gotta do more! We haven’t done enough!’ They recognize what all this is. It’s just a hoax to raise taxes.
CALLER: Well, there are a lot of people out here like me, Rush, that quietly we talk amongst ourselves; and we know that all this bogus, trumped-up crud about the environment and the liberalism and the media shoving this down our throat. We know it. We feel it. We listen to you. We believe it. But it has to go a step further. Wake up. Citizens, wake up. You better speak up or the time for speaking will be over and we will have lost those rights. A carbon card to carry in your wallet? Are you kidding me?
RUSH: No. Listen —
CALLER: In the greatest country of the world, the United States, we’re going to follow suit and we’re going to have a bunch of special things on our driver’s license or carbon this or carbon that? Give me a break.
RUSH: ‘Anybody who exceeds their entitlement,’ their carbon entitlement ‘would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven’t used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces, the deal done through a specialist company.’ This is a private citizen version of McCain’s cap-in-trade program that he is supporting for businesses.
CALLER: Well, it’s too bad. It’s all too bad.
RUSH: It’s worse.
CALLER: I —
RUSH: It’s worse than that.
CALLER: Of course it’s worse than that, Rush. All we can do is listen to your program. I’ve never heard you — as long as I have your ear, I will tell you I listen every day, and I have never heard you through this presidential cycle be so spot-on, so honest, not afraid to take the heat, not afraid to take the barbs — and, believe me, I listen to all of it, liberal and conservative talk show, TV, radio. We listen to it all because we feel like it is our responsibility as United States citizens to be informed, and I have never heard you — and that’s something to say because I know your rating is like 99.9.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: However, I have never heard you so spot-on, and I can tell just in my voice when I called I was practically crying and now I feel better. Now I’m just pissed. (laughing) Not weepy anymore, just angry, but I’ve never heard you so spot-on.
RUSH: You know what, I love your passion, and we’re going to have the reaction to your call — I’ve been checking just subject lines in the e-mails here while we’ve been speaking — and people are standing up out there cheering you.
CALLER: Oh, I’m so glad.
RUSH: They are, because most people feel alone. I mean I’m sure you look at whatever — the McClellan book incident or the latest Republican to cave and join the Democrats or whatever — and you look around, and you feel like, ‘Gosh, am I isolated? Am I the only one sane in this country?’ And you have to have faith that there are far more than — and I think you understand this because you said so. There are far more than you that understand this.
CALLER: There are, Rush. There are tons of us out there, but they have to have a bigger voice. They have to speak louder. They have to. When they’re in a group, it’s like you said about when you go to a liberal thing or, as opposed to a liberal coming with you, how different people feel. Sometimes you’re in a crowd and you get the sense that (muttering), ‘Ugh, I hate Bush,’ and you think, ‘I’ll say nothing. I don’t want to start a war.’ It isn’t about starting a war. It’s about that you’re entitled to your opinion as much as they’re entitled to theirs. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘Sure, there are some things that the president does and says that I don’t agree with, that my family doesn’t agree with. Do I think that he has our best interests at heart and is doing the best he can? Most of the time, yes. Am I a blind, numb robot? No. Do I know that there are problems with his candidacy? Yeah. Do I know that there has to be some great fixes in this world? Yes. But, overall, I’m a United States citizen. I’m an American citizen, and I have to put my patriotism above other things. There are people that want to kill our family. There are people that want to change our way of life, and I don’t want that.’
RUSH: Well, the liberals are trying to redefine patriotism, too.
CALLER: Oh, yeah! Duh.
RUSH: They are trying to redefine patriotism to equal what they are doing to George W. Bush and what they are doing to the country. Their patriotism is built on the foundation that this country is a fraud, that this country is oriented toward evil and that this country needs to be brought down to size. So, you know, I think one of the things, actually, that brings all this to the surface, is our success. I think our success of so-called conservative media and Republicans winning elections, presidential-wise when the Democrats thought they had these things sewn up — and Republicans might win the next one, too. I think our success in a way is responsible for bringing these people out of their shell. They used to hide behind masks and camouflage. But now they’re so enraged and they are so bitter that they are illustrating. This presidential campaign on the Democrat side is a great example. They’re illustrating for us exactly who they are and what they are and you’ve nailed ’em. And don’t think you’re the only one out there that has been able to put this together on our own. I’m glad you called, Darla. It’s really great. I’m a little long here. In fact, I’m way long. I have just blown the programming format to smithereens but that’s because of how good you were.