RUSH: This is Steve in Bakersfield, California. Hello.
CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I’ve been a listener for about 20 years. I’ve always admired your common sense and sense of humor.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Yeah. My question, really, and if anybody would know it, probably you, why haven’t any of these people in Congress been asked to recuse themselves from voting on giving away our money to the very same companies and corporations and individuals — UAW, Freddie and Fannie, preferential loans to Dodd — you know, it looks to me like bribery. And what’s to prevent these guys from taking the money Congress gives them, our money, and shoving it back to the Congress people for another bailout down the road? This is insane. It’s gotta stop.
RUSH: I’m telling you, you have hit the bull’s-eye here on something that is I think very, very important in our country right now.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: What you are basically talking about is where the hell has ethics gone? That’s what you’re asking.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: And, you know, ethics in Washington is like everything else, it’s a partisan two-way street. The Democrats really are not subject to any ethics. Victor Davis Hanson has a three-pager today at National Review Online about this very interesting conundrum that exists there, and I’ll just give you one example off the top. Here you have Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Let’s just take Chris Dodd. Chris Dodd actually accepted money from Countrywide, the big mortgage broker and bank. He got a preferred mortgage interest rate. He was in the VIP program, that was the purpose of it. He oversaw legislation as the chairman of the banking committee that governed the mortgage industry, including his good buddy Angelo over at Countrywide. Not only is Chris Dodd not shamed, not only did he not resign, not only did he not get embarrassed, he’s now in charge of rewriting the rules again for the mortgage industry.
CALLER: Scary, isn’t it?
RUSH: In the meantime, Trent Lott happened to make a joke about how much better America would be if Strom Thurmond had become governor somewhere, and he’s forced out of the Senate for some words he told at a birthday party for an old man who couldn’t even hear him anymore. So Republicans fall on the sword all the time, and then the Republicans demand that their own guys fall on the sword. The Republicans were the ones that forced Trent Lott out. I mean the Democrats are right in there demanding it, but the White House said, yep, I think you ought to go, you’re embarrassing us. Ted Stevens, Ted, get the hell out of there, just won reelection but you’re an unethical guy, get out. Democrats never fall on the sword, nobody ever demands they fall on the sword, so the answer to your question is, at our juncture in history now, Democrats are not capable, it’s not possible by virtue of the definition of the word for them to be unethical. So there’s no need for them to recuse themselves.
CALLER: Is there any possible way to put a provision in any of these things to keep this money from being shoveled back to the same criminals that are taking our money now?
RUSH: Well, the people that would have to write the provision are the people you’re referring to here as the criminals, and I doubt they’re going to ace themselves out of this.
CALLER: Probably not.
RUSH: I mean, I’ll tell you, I was talking about this on the radio yesterday, and I mentioned it a little bit in the speech last night in Washington. It’s mind-boggling to watch this. It defies all common sense. All people can do is sit around and laugh. We’re all Will Rogers now. You know, we’re all Will Rogers making jokes about Congress. It’s gotten to the point now that it is just absurd! It’s gone beyond obscene. Nobody takes these people seriously. The American people are fit to be tied over it but have no power to do anything about it. What can the American people do, they just elected these people to run the show. At the same time, they’re fit to be tied over it. I don’t care, there does not seem to be any possible way a Democrat can ever violate ethics. They just simply don’t apply.
Here is Mike in Greenville, North Carolina. You’re on Open Line Friday. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, I just wanted to point out that all we have to do is look back to 2002 with the US steel industry —
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: — for exactly how this should play out. Back in ’02, the steel industry was at an all-time low. We’re making steel for under manufacturing cost, and in that year, Bethlehem Steel, Ltd, all, you know, went into Chapter 7, the government let them because there was an overcapacity, and Nucor, which is a mini-mill, took over, US steel is still running strong, and right now, you know, six years later, the US steel market is phenomenal. The industry is balanced, as far as capacity-wise, and they’re making a lot of money. So we just have to look six years in the past to know exactly what we need to do.
RUSH: It’s a great example, and of course the Steelers, the football team of US steel, they’ve never gone into recession, they’re still kicking butt out there.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: But you don’t have to go to the past in order to find evidence of how to do something. Look to the present. All you have to do, you go to Alabama and Mississippi and Georgia and maybe Virginia, I’m not sure, one of the two Carolinas, you’re going to find a thriving automobile industry in those states, and while they are foreign, quote, unquote, cars, they’re made in America, and they cost basically $2,000 a car less than cars made in Michigan because these thriving automobile companies in the South are not unionized.