HALL: Rush Limbaugh is already saying this is going to kill the Republican Party. This is going to bring in people who are going to overwhelm our schools. The way it’s framed, if you call it amnesty that sounds like forgiveness for bad behavior. If you call it earned citizenship that’s another thing. Framing is key I think to how people feel about it.
THOMAS: Framing is key and follow-up and how the media treat the follow-up. After the ’86 immigration bill, there was no secure identifier. There’s something like that apparently in this bill. And if it clears the House with something that it has, you know, relatively simple to the — similar to the Senate, then I think it might be all right, but, Jane, that’s right, the key is talk radio, Limbaugh and some of the others, and whether this is going to be amnesty or not.
RUSH: There’s no ‘whether’ about it. You know, if you have to start framing it, then it means you’re massaging it, it means you’re spinning it. You don’t want it to be called something that it is. It’s amnesty. This is being discussed on Saturday night. Here is more from this. Eric Burns, the host says, ‘Well, when you say the key is talk radio are you seriously giving talk radio, one segment of the media, so much authority it will determine the outcome of this?’
THOMAS: It will as far as conservatives and Republicans are concerned. Rush Limbaugh said on his program on Thursday — or Wednesday that if the Republicans go along with what is perceived to be amnesty, they’re finished in the next election. That’s pretty strong.
BURNS: Does that mean the Republicans in Congress go along?
THOMAS: Oh, I think —
PINKERTON: I think the Republicans in Congress understand that Rush Limbaugh made them what they were back in 1993 and 1994, so if Limbaugh and these people stay against it — look, I mean just to play politics here for a second as opposed to media coverage Nancy Pelosi says she won’t move the bill forward unless she gets 70 Republican votes out of the Republican conference. If talk radio can push that number below 70, then one would presume this deal is dead.
RUSH: Now, why would Pelosi not move it forward without 70 Republican votes? She doesn’t want to be attached to this. She wants the result, but she wants this clearly pinned to the White House, she wants this to appear — that’s why she loves McCain up there, trying to hog little face time on camera with Senator Kennedy. They know this is going to give them what they want. It’s going to be bad news for the country as it’s currently structured, but they’re trying to tear that down and rebuild the country in their own liberal socialist image. This bill is key to that. What does she care how many Republicans, if she can get the thing to pass? If she can get it to pass with five Republicans, why not? Why not take it? If the legislation’s good — no, seriously, folks — if the legislation is good, who cares? If it’s the right thing to do, if it’s the best deal we can get at the time, if we miss this chance we may blow it — all these clichés. She could hold out, she won’t move it forward without 70 Republican votes? Uh, this ain’t about the bill, then. It’s not about the last chance; it ain’t about the best bill we can get; it isn’t about all these other clichés that we’re hearing about. This is about cover. This is about political cover.
This is a fascinating story. This also from USA Today. The headline alone says it all. ‘Feds watching anti-immigrant extremists.’ Well, you people out there in the feds better keep a sharp eye because I have a feeling these groups are about to quadruple in number in the next week or so. ‘Carl D. Wynn Jr., who last fall posed as a U.S. border agent and wrongly suggested that a Little Rock construction company had hired illegal immigrants, has come to symbolize how the divisive immigration debate can progress from legal expressions of opposition to offensive action. Wynn, also accused of attempting to sabotage the same company by planting tire-ripping spikes outside the business, has quickly come to represent a ‘troubling’ development within the radical ranks of the anti-immigration movement.’ So, what’s happening now is that those of you who are anti this bill — by the way, there’s no anti-immigration movement that I know of. There’s an anti-illegal immigration movement that I know of, and there’s an anti-this-bill to deal with it movement that I know of. But there’s no anti-immigration movement to speak of.
So they’ve got one kook here, one Looney Toon who now comes to represent the Timothy McVeigh of the anti-illegal immigrant movement. They go out and find one kook, and this is what the feds are worried about, gotta get those anti-immigrant extremists. Forget the illegals. We gotta get the anti-immigrant extremists. At any rate, you see how this is shaping up.
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RUSH: We just did the story that the feds are all worried about these anti-illegal immigrant extremists. Well, they better add some border agents to the list. ‘The leadership of all 11,000 non-supervisory US Border Patrol agents yesterday criticized an immigration compromise by senators and the Bush administration as piecemeal legislation that invites future terrorist attacks and fails to secure the nation’s borders. The National Border Patrol Council president T. J. Bonner said, ‘Ever person who’s ever risked their lives securing our borders is extremely disheartened to see some of our elected representatives once again waving the white flag on the issues of illegal immigration and border security. Rewarding criminal behavior has never induced anyone to abide by the law and there’s no reason to believe the outcome will be any different this time.” These are Border Patrol agents, non-supervisory guys, they’re the front line guys. So better add them to the list of extremists out there that the feds are going to have to pay attention to. Richard in San Marino, California, you’re next, sir. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Rush good morning from the Left Coast.
RUSH: Yes, sir. I was just out there, but I, unlike you, escaped.
CALLER: Yes. Rush, you have talked with Dick Cheney, Tony Snow, had him on the air, and the standard line is, ‘We can’t deport 12 million people.’ But apparently they have a secret plan of some kind where they’re going to be able to deport two or three million, which is what Chertoff has been recently quoted as saying will not qualify even under this plan, so Tony Snow says they’ll have to go home. What does that mean? How are they going to do it?
RUSH: Again, I really do not enjoy having to assume this position, but my great fear and the thing that concerns me is that that little statement, two to three million who aren’t going to qualify are going to have to go home, who’s going to make them? They’re going to have to report in. All these people are going to have to report in and they’re going to have to pay their fines. There’s no enforcement here because there’s no incentive to cause the exodus to go the other way. The same bureaucracy that couldn’t keep track of the Fort Dix Six; the same bureaucracy that didn’t know Mohammed Atta and his boys were out there taking flying lessons, are somehow going to be able to round up two to three million who won’t qualify? By the time this is passed, we’re not going to have the guts to say they don’t qualify because we’re being judgmental. ‘Well, it’s really not fair. We’re letting nine or ten or whatever the number is stay, and we’re singling out, stigmatizing these poor two or three million? This is not the America I know. We’re not going to tell some that they have to go and some that they can stay.’ And so, look, if it were that easy to get rid of two or three million, then it shouldn’t take very long, number of years, to get rid of 12. Richard, thanks for the call out there, I appreciate it. Snerdley, wake up. Where we going next? Visalia, California, home of the onions. Dave, nice to have you with us. He’s gone. I’m glad he’s gone. He wants to talk about Bush owns defeat in Iraq. He’s an idiot; why’d you put him up there? Susan in Baltimore, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: I guess I’m one of those extremists, I don’t know, but I used to watch your TV program at two in the morning, that’s when you came on in Baltimore, they didn’t want us to watch you. But I had to get up and go to work, I was always sleepy but I couldn’t go to sleep wondering what I was missing, I could have taped it but then I still was wondering what I was missing so I had to get up and watch it. But I am disappointed with you. You are talking now about illegal immigration, finally.
RUSH: Don’t give me this ‘finally.’
CALLER: Yes, finally. You don’t talk about it that much. Roger Hedgecock, when he fills in for you, he always talks about it a lot.
RUSH: Well, Roger, he talks about it, so we talk about it here. It happens on the program. I’ve talked about it countless times.
CALLER: Well, not very long. You don’t give it give it much time.
RUSH: Oh, well, look, I don’t want to argue about that.
CALLER: No, I don’t, either.
RUSH: You’re ticked at me, and besides the fact that I’m a late arrival in your opinion to the issue — I’m only the leader on it — what else are you ticked at?
CALLER: Well, many things. I voted for President Bush twice, believe me. I did.
RUSH: Is that my fault, too?
CALLER: Yes. No, I’m only kidding. No, I’m only kidding. But anyway —
RUSH: That is what you want to say, I know that’s what you want to say.
CALLER: No, no, no, no. I’m so worried. You know, I love your sense of humor. I think you’re fantastic. But at this time, I think our country is at stake. I mean the survival of our country. I’m nervous so, you know, I mean —
RUSH: Wait a minute. What’s my sense of humor got to do with the country? You think I’m having too many laughs here?
RUSH: Well, I think we should be talking seriously about what’s going to happen —
RUSH: Were you listening here Thursday and Friday?
CALLER: Yes, I am.
RUSH: That was pretty down the middle of the road serious as it can be.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And so it has been today.
CALLER: And I love it, that you do that.
RUSH: Okay, so now when you’re getting what you want, you call and complain. The guy in Albuquerque wonders what my problem with women is.
CALLER: (Laughing.) But, Rush —
RUSH: See? Now you laughed at that, so you knew what I meant by it, right?
CALLER: Well, what it is, Rush, I think our survival is at stake, and I watched the debates belatedly, someone taped it for me, and I watched it, and I really like Duncan Hunter. I think he’s another Ronald Reagan myself.
RUSH: Well, that’s me, and I’m not running.
CALLER: Well, you should.
RUSH: I’m kidding. I spent a lot of time today talking about the demographic shift that could result from this, and the no assimilation. There have been a couple people who have written about this that I’ve quoted today, Stephen Warshosky and Selwyn Duke both at AmericanThinker.com and they’re worried about the exact same thing that you just said and I can’t agree more. You’ve got this massively large demographic shift, you’re going to change the country forever. A conservative movement, a viable one, one that has a chance of mobilizing people in sufficient numbers to win elections, might become a practical impossibility.
CALLER: I know. This is what frightens me. I mean I cannot vote for the Marxist Democratic Party and I feel that’s what they are.
RUSH: Well, look, I just want to tell you something. None of this is going to happen before 2008. Elections matter. Now, you and a lot of others are sitting out there thinking there’s nothing we can do. You’re just one person, you feel a little powerless, but this bill, as it’s currently crafted, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance. Mitch McConnell says we can’t get this done before Memorial Day, and he wants to — well, he should, I hope he says something about making this part of the presidential debate. That’s where this debate really needs to happen, but this going to be headed off at the — well, it can. You shouldn’t give up on that possibility.
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