CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Good, sir.
CALLER: First-time caller long-time listener.
RUSH: Nice to have with us today sir.
CALLER: Remember the Rush lunches way back then when you were really cutting into the Clinton administration? Where restaurants would have the lunchrooms?
RUSH: The Rush rooms! You’re talking about the Rush rooms?
CALLER: Yeah, remember thaose years ago?
RUSH: I do, of course, yes. There’s still some out there.
CALLER: Are there now? I don’t know. I used to really enjoy listening to you. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re holding this administration to the same level you held the Clinton administration.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: Imagine, just imagine the last six years. Change the name of the administration from Bush to Clinton, what would you want to be doing to the president?
RUSH: Ummmm, well, giving the exact circumstances?
CALLER: Uh-huh, the exact circumstances.
RUSH: Nothing.
CALLER: Oh, you wouldn’t? Huh huh. Rush, tell me the truth, man (unintelligible).
RUSH: No, see, you’re framing the question wrong. If Clinton were president now, there wouldn’t be tax cuts; there wouldn’t be a roaring economy, and we wouldn’t be in Iraq! So your question is irrelevant.
CALLER: Are you proud…?
RUSH: You can play these what-if games but I’m not going to sit here and defend myself. My job is not to be ‘equally hard —
CALLER: It should be!
RUSH: — on administrations.
CALLER: It should be. If you’re true independent, you should be.
RUSH: I’m not. I’ve never said that I’m independent. I believe —
CALLER: You should be holding each administration —
RUSH: — in a cause —
CALLER: — to the same level.
RUSH: — and I’m trying to advance it. By the way, you should call this administration and ask them if they think I’m one of their pals right now.
CALLER: You are!
RUSH: Illegal immigration bill?
CALLER: No, and I agree with you on that.
RUSH: Well?
CALLER: That’s the one time I really agreed with you.
RUSH: Okay, well, then, see?
CALLER: But you’re proud to be in Iraq?
RUSH: What?
CALLER: Are you proud to be in Iraq?
RUSH: So, your policy in Iraq differs from mine and you think I’m wrong about it.
CALLER: No, I’m ask you Rush, let me ask you the question.
RUSH: Ask it.
CALLER: How does the military win in Iraq? You’ve got a country of twenty-six million people.
RUSH: Doing what they’re doing! You force the Al-Qaeda group that’s in there from outside the country, back out.
CALLER: Al-Qaeda is fighting a whirlwind compared to the problems they’ve got with the Sunnis and the Shi’a. Do you know that?
RUSH: Uh —
CALLER: Okay, one more question.
RUSH: No, it’s not. See, this is your great misunderstanding. Have you been listening since the beginning of the program?
CALLER: Yeah, that’s why I actually called. Those two ladies that called in, the one on CSPAN.
RUSH: Because I’ll tell you, the fact is, if you want to win this —
CALLER: What do you do? What do you think?
RUSH: You drive Al-Qaeda out of it. You drive Al-Qaeda out of it.
CALLER: Al-Qaeda has nothing to do with it!
RUSH: Yes, it does.
CALLER: They’re just a little toenail.
RUSH: That’s the whole point! You didn’t hear the beginning of the program. It’s the whole point. It’s not a sectarian war.
CALLER: It is!
RUSH: It is not!
CALLER: How can you say it’s not?
RUSH: It is not.
CALLER: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
RUSH: Look, this is worthless. This is not worth my time anymore. I covered this in the very opening segment of the show. We captured a bad guy. Listen to me on this, Joe. We captured a bad guy. He’s telling us everything. He’s the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, we thought. It turns out Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a fictitious group, started by Zawahiri and the real Al-Qaeda to make it look like there’s a civil war there! There isn’t a civil war. Saying it’s a civil war is what gives people like you cover for saying you can’t win it militarily, Sunnis and the Shi’a and they hate each other and blah, blah, and the Kurds and all that. Drive Al-Qaeda out of there, and we win militarily. Drive Al-Qaeda out of there, and we got a better chance of shoring up security within the nation and get the political thing going. It’s entirely doable. It’s entirely possible. But not with attitudes like yours. By the way, John Kerry is a liar, too. Who’s next on this program? (interruption) This is my Type A personality? (sigh) Okay, if the way I’m behaving now is Type A, I’m Type A. (sigh) I’m going to have to look up Type A because I think I’ve got some Type B characteristics! I can sight in my library for five hours with the door shut and not talk to a soul. Is that Type A? That’s Type A? Okay, well, then I’m Type A. Okay, Type A doesn’t want to be bothered with the underlings, with the riffraff, with all the humdrum? Okay, then that’s me.