RUSH: This is from a column by Chris Satullo, Philadelphia Inquirer: ”A Not-So-Glorious Fourth — US Atrocities are Unworthy of Our Heritage’ — Put the fireworks in storage. Cancel the parade. Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time. This year, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement. For we have sinned. We have failed to pay attention. We’ve settled for lame excuses. We’ve spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago. The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner. The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing. The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them. Such abuses once were committed by the arrogant crowns of Europe, spawning rebellion. Today, our nation does such things in the name of our safety. Petrified, unwilling to take the risks that love of liberty demands, we close our eyes. 
‘We have done such things, on orders from the Oval Office. We have done them, without general outrage or shame. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. CIA secret prisons. ‘Rendition’ of prisoners to foreign torture chambers. It’s not enough that we had good reason to be scared. The men huddled long ago in Philadelphia had better reason. A British fleet floated off the Jersey coast, full of hands eager to hang them from the nearest lampposts. Yet they pledged their lives and sacred honor — no idle vow — to defend the ‘inalienable rights’ of men. Inalienable — what does that signify? It means rights that belong to each person, simply by virtue of being human. Rights that can never be taken away, no matter what evil a person might do or might intend. Surely one of those is the right not to be tortured. Surely that is a piece of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights. No, not even the brave men who picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and signed the parchment that summer day in Philadelphia lived up perfectly to the creed. But they did something extraordinary, founding a new nation upon a vow to oppose all the evil habits of tyranny. That is why history still honors them.
‘But what will history think of us, of how we responded to our great challenge? Sept. 11 was a hideous evil, a grievous wound. Yet, truth told, it has not summoned our better angels as often as our worst. We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart. Don’t imagine that only the torturer’s hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that — to us. Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little. We can’t claim not to have known. The best among us raised the alarm. Heroes in uniform, judges in robes, they opposed the perverse logic of an administration drenched in fear, drunk on power. But did we heed them? Hardly. Barely . . . We were so busy. Soccer practice at 6. A credit card balance to fret. The final vote on Idol. We left it to those in power to keep our precious selves from harm. Whatever it took. We took the coward’s way. The world sees this, even if we are too dim to grasp it. We’ve lost respect. We’ve shamed the memory of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin. And all for a scam. The waterboarding, the snarling dogs, the theft of sleep — all the diabolical tricks haven’t made us safer. They may have averted this plot or that. But they’ve spawned new enemies by the thousands, made the jihadist rants ring true to so many ears,’ meaning more and more people in the world hate our guts and believe the jihadists.
‘So put out no flags. Sing no patriotic hymns. We deserve no Fourth this year. Let us atone, in quiet and humility. Let us spend the day truly studying the example of our Founders. May we earn a new birth of courage before our nation’s birthday next rolls around.’ This is the Philadelphia Inquirer. (interruption) Snerdley wants to know why I’m torturing you all with this. I’ll explain in a minute. This is Chris Satullo from the Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s a columnist. The reason that I would torture you with this is it is evidence of that which I have been saying for many, many years now, that there is a growing population in this country that hates this country, that dislikes this country. They’re all in the left side of the aisle, they’re all leftists to one degree or another, and these are the people that are going to vote for Obama. They’re going to vote for Obama because they think Obama agrees with them, that we’ve been mean and we’ve been stealing the world’s resources. This is not just about torture. We’re destroying the planet with global warming. Our SUVs are doing damage untold. Our desire for more and more is selfish, and it’s keeping the rest of the world poor. I’m just telling you, there’s a cadre of movement, of people in this country who genuinely detest this country and do not like it, and they fall back on excuses such as, we have let down the Founding Fathers. So I just find examples of these things and, rather than tell you that these people are out there, I let you hear what they think in their own words.
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RUSH: Here’s Harry Reid, by the way, Dingy Harry, who was on the Fox Business Network yesterday afternoon. Liz Klayman talked to him. And she said, ‘Tell me your perspective on this plan and why you’re supportive of it at a time when Congress is having trouble passing the housing bill, because we have the energy credits attached to it and some senators don’t want that.’
REID: We talk about ‘cost competitiveness,’ but the one thing we failed to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is, coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. This global warming, it’s ruining our country. It’s ruining our world. You’ve got to stop using fossil fuel. We have, for generations, taken it out of the earth, carbon out of the earth and put it in the atmosphere, and it’s making us all sick, and it’s changing our world.
RUSH: These people are losing it. Oil and coal are making us sick? Oil and coal built the country! Oil and coal sustain the casinos and the hotels in his home state. But the point of all this is not the specifics of what he says. It is time people woke up and just understood where the Democrat Party is and what their future for America is — and, folks, it is filled with pain. There is nothing but a constant state of decline. We are the greatest sinners! I don’t care if it’s this columnist in Philadelphia, who’s talking about torture and his imagined bloated number of examples, all over the world, and the world hates us because of this — or whether it’s Harry Reid or any other Democrat suggesting that we’ve got to stop using oil because we’re destroying the planet — the Democrat Party has now become a full-fledged member of the far left, and the far left and the Democrat Party believe in one thing: America’s guilt, the guilt that has been born of prosperity and growth.
And, by God, Harry Reid, Democrat Party, and willing accomplices in the Drive-By Media are not gonna rest until we get cut down to size and pay the price for our sins! I sit here and marvel when I read this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer or listen to Harry Reid, and I say to myself, ‘How in the world can a majority of Americans want to vote for people with this view of their own country?’ Surely, ladies and gentlemen, we are not populated by a majority of voters who think their own country sucks! Surely, we are not populated with a majority of voters who believe that the United States of America is the focus of evil in the world. Surely, we do not have a majority of voters in this country who believe that the United States must be cut down to size, that we must be harmed, and that we must do it to ourselves. Certainly we do not have a majority of Americans, voting Americans, who believe that this country deserves not to exist as it does.
Certainly, that can’t be true. And yet, look at the number of votes these people are going to get. I don’t know if it’s going to be enough electoral votes to win; nobody does. I don’t know what the popular votes are going to be. But, believe me, there’s no difference in Harry Reid and Barack Obama. It’s the Democrat Party. And they don’t have any ‘mavericks’ in their Democrat Party. What they have is a blood thirst, a blood thirst for power. And they will do anything, including deceive in order to get it. When Obama does a flip-flop on faith-based initiatives, as he has done… For example the news story here from the Associated Press: ‘Reaching out to evangelical voters … Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush’s program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.’
Now, does anybody really believe that the Democrat Party supports this? Do you think the Democrat Party actually wants to import evangelical voters and have evangelical voters’ policies enacted as part of the Democrat platform? I don’t believe that for a minute, yet here’s Obama saying it. What they are hoping is that the evangelize community will fall for it. He is, after all, shrouded in the heavenly light. He’s an angelic, messianic countenance and persona. I know there are liberal churches that benefit from this like Trinity, but ‘Obama’s support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding, consider religion in employment decisions,’ it says here ‘is likely to invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination.’ Now, what this tells me is that my question, ‘Certainly there cannot be a majority of American voters who will elect to power people who want to destroy this country as we know it. Surely that can’t be,’ and I think this is evidence that it is not true. They know they have to move to the center. They know that they cannot be who they are and win elections. And yet here’s Harry Reid: Oil makes us sick. Coal makes us sick. We’re destroying the earth with global warming. We have to leave it in the ground. The economic consequences of that are too dire to even contemplate. Yet he says he’s for it?
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RUSH: I watch how all the liberals who opposed George W. Bush on faith-based initiatives will quickly line up behind Obama. You watch. You just watch. The fact is, he has never shown support for this before. Never. It’s just another reason for him to expand government. That’s the key to this. Obama is a leftist with a strategy, and that includes convincing evangelicals that he is their friend. He didn’t take this stance when fighting for the Democrat nomination. No. Now they say he’s ‘tacking to the center,’ which is what all candidates do after they win the primary. He’s not moving anywhere, folks. He is deceiving, pure and simple. If Obama and the Democrats can use faith-based initiatives as a way to win office, he will. It’s that simple. And if he can use it as a way to grow government, he will. It’s that simple.
I have said this before, and it bears repeating, because I think it’s well worth your while to remember this. The left is about power, and they are willing to say whatever they must or do whatever they must to gain it. That is how all of Obama’s comments and proposals must be examined. They are not legitimate. They are not genuine. They are not sincere. They are deceptive. They are calculated. Some of them are diabolical. They are designed to win, pure and simple. This is a classic, classic illustration, ladies and gentlemen, of how liberalism works. It’s right in front of our eyes. Except now, never before in my vast and wide arrayed career of broadcast exceptionalism, never before has the Democrat Party — the leftists always have, but never before has the Democrat Party — endorsed the notion that this country is deeply flawed because of our own people and our own structure. Never before has the mainstream media gone so far in echoing those sentiments by the Democrat Party that this is an unjust and immoral country.
That is what’s new. What is new is that they intend to punish the population of this country, the American people, for having created these sins. And among these sins, by the way, is the election of George W. Bush, because if you had not elected George W. Bush, then there wouldn’t have been any torture, and there wouldn’t have been any waterboarding, and liberals would not have been embarrassed. And, by the way, has this notion of torture frankly been established and proven as something commonplace, as something that even happened frequently? You notice how people just buy into this. We tortured. It’s routine. It’s the way of the Bush administration, and it’s the way America has become. All those lying stories about flushing Korans down toilets turned out not to be true. And who is this that we’re talking about here? Who is it that we’re talking about?
We’re talking about a bunch of backwards, Seventh Century fanatics who would do it again and again and again. We’re up against a bunch of fruitcakes who are willing to die to accomplish their mission. I mean, they consider that part of the mission. I think that most of these leftists who write these hand-wringing pieces about what a rotten place we are, about what a rotten country we are, I don’t think they have the slightest notion the danger that we face. I don’t think they have the slightest understanding of the risks that associate themselves with the world’s lone superpower. I don’t think they have the slightest understanding, even after 9/11, even after the USS Cole, after all these. I don’t think they have the slightest understanding of what the enemies of this country intend for us. And for those who do understand it, they’re more likely than not to agree with our enemies, that we deserve it, as Harry Reid thinks we deserve it. Yeah, we’re destroying the planet with global warming. Coal makes us sick; oil makes us sick.
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RUSH: You know, I imagine a number of you people, when I said that the left is going to go right along with Obama on the faith-based initiative flip-flop, I can imagine you’re shaking your heads and thinking, ‘No, they’re not.’ You wait, folks. Trust me. Do not doubt me. They will come up with a convoluted, pretzel-type position here to take that will allow the left to acknowledge Barack’s flip-flop on this because they know at the end of the day it’s all smoke and mirrors. The kook-fringe left may have some things to say about, people at HuffPo and these sort of places, but you watch, they’re coordinated, they’re going to handle this the right way, they’re going to let him get away with these things. They are not going to take down their own candidate, it’s just that simple, other than those angry Clinton women who are still fit to be tied out there. Don’t discount what they might do.
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RUSH: James in Kokomo, Indiana, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Yeah. Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I was told to get right to the point, so I will.
RUSH: Don’t take that personally. I mean everybody is told that.
CALLER: All right, well, then, I’ve got another point. As a Vietnam veteran, I think that the best ambassadors that we have — by the way, happy upcoming Fourth, Independence Day — are the US military. The State Department does not hire the quality of people that we have going overseas. Now, in addition to that, I think we’re reaching the tipping point in regard to this oil deal and the economy of this country and the welfare of this country. I think that Gore and Tom Friedman, Reid, Harry, Pelosi, and Obama are almost as much a threat as Osama Bin Laden.
RUSH: In a different manifestation, in a different way.
CALLER: Well, they’re going to destroy this economy.
RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not going to plant bombs in buildings to do it.
CALLER: No. By the way, I’m a golfer, too.
RUSH: (laughing) However you’re a golfer, too?
CALLER: Yeah. Well, you had a caller yesterday, or last week, that wanted to know what we could do about it. And my advice goes back to the Founding Fathers, tea in the harbor. If we’re not going to be represented by these people, we shouldn’t pay ’em taxes.
RUSH: Let me ask you a question here, James. I mean, cut to the chase here. Okay, so you believe that Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Algore, Tom Friedman, all these leftists are actually going to destroy our economy —
CALLER: Yeah, they are —
RUSH: I understand. I’m just recounting for the audience what you said. Two things: Do you believe they’re doing it on purpose, and if so, why?
CALLER: Well, so that they can control how we eat, what we drive —
RUSH: Why do they want to do that?
CALLER: Well, evidently they’ve got some money coming out of it. They’re going to tax us. They intend to get our money.
RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not going to get it personally.
CALLER: Oh, yeah?
RUSH: Well, you’re right, some of them. The reason I asked the question, folks, is because there are a lot of Americans who think this. When you look at the Democrats and you look at the American left and you look at what they’re very open and honestly stating, and it does equal a disaster. Raising income tax rates, raising the capital gains tax rate, no exploration for new oil, raising taxes on energy, expanding the federal government every which way possible, taking more and more, property, whatever you wish. We’re practicing the art of persuasion here. You want to get to as many people as possible to sound the warning. So if you go out and you say that the Democrats, the Obama campaign and all the others are hell-bent on destroying the US economy, how many people do you think are going to believe that there are Americans who actually want that to happen?
Now, we know on our side of the aisle that the Democrats want to control as much of American life as possible in this country and they want to make sure that when they get power that they never lose it again. But if you go out and tell people they want destroy the economy, they’re a bigger threat than Bin Laden, you’re not going to persuade anybody, because people don’t want to think that about their fellow Americans. Besides, you say that about Harry Reid, what do people know about Harry Reid? Very little except when they see him on TV. He’s soft-spoken, just trying to help people get along and so forth, doesn’t look like somebody diabolical, doesn’t look like somebody that wants to destroy the US economy or change it drastically or harm it greatly, and yet the liberal prescriptions that they’re honest about would do exactly that. It’s also very difficult for a lot of Americans to accept, just because somebody says so, that the sole purpose of Obama and his campaign is to say and do anything to get elected ’cause they want the power, because they want to control as much of your life as possible. They want you to become as dependent on government as possible.
A lot of people just don’t want to believe that a whole political party has that as its objective. They can’t believe that the people in the Democrat Party don’t want what’s best for America; even though there are countless examples of Democrats doing everything they can to secure defeat in Iraq and in the war on terror; even though it’s Democrats who have done everything they can to destroy the Bush presidency; even though it is Democrats who have made up lies, slanderous, libelous lies about US military men being rapists and murderers and so forth. They hear Democrats talking about raising taxes, but they do it under the guise of getting even with the rich. So it’s a tough sell to convince a lot of people of the actual desires that Democrats have. You could play them a tape of Harry Reid saying, ‘Oil makes us sick, coal makes us sick,’ and depending on who you show the tape to, if most of those people pay scant attention to the news but every now and then watch the evening news and have seen just how mean-spirited we are and the smokestacks and the penguins and the polar bears in trouble, they might even agree with him. And then they might hear alternative energy is the answer and plugging your car in at a hundred miles a gallon, they might say yeah, let’s do that, even though it’s nowhere, anywhere near, even in a dream, close to reality. So it’s the same sold thing. How do you sound the warning bell, how do you sound the clarion call in a way that doesn’t cause people to run the opposite direction and think that you are the kook?