RUSH: Okay. This is Supreme Court announcement day, 9 o’clock tonight President Trump will make his announcement. You ever noticed, folks, how the Drive-By Media these days spends more time talking about things that have yet to happen and then characterizing these things that have yet to happen as one thing or another? And it’s happening more and more frequently.

I have noticed this. Much and much of what gets reported as news is the media actually talking about things that have not yet happened, but that are scheduled to happen, and then the media starts precharacterizing what it all means before it’s even happened.

This Supreme Court justice pick thing, I have to be honest. It’s kind of driven me a little crazy. I read conservative blogs, a few, and I read conservative — well, I read everything. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I have been at all the navel-gazing going on. I mean, it’s not just the Drive-Bys talking about things that haven’t happened. It seems like everybody’s engaged in the analysis of who the pick’s gonna be, and, if it is the pick, what’s good about it, what’s bad about it and, therefore, why it will or won’t be the pick, and then do that for every person named.

And you can go crazy trying to follow the maze. “Well, if it’s Kavanaugh, yeah, be with could be Kavanaugh, but he’s the only guy that went to Harvard and Trump likes that, but the guys got a long paper trail. This guy has written opinions for 12 years in the DC Circuit and elsewhere, he’s got a million pages of stuff, the Democrats got a lot to pick through. Trump’s not gonna give them that kind of opportunity. Well, we can’t go Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh’s Rove’s guy. Kavanaugh dates all the way back to the Bush 43 administration. Trump’s not gonna do that. He loathes the Bushes. So it’s not gonna be Kavanaugh.”

Well, then it’s gonna be Kethledge. “Well, it can’t be Kethledge ’cause Kethledge hasn’t written enough, and we’re not sure that Kethledge is pro-life.” This has been going on for two weeks. And nobody writing about this stuff has the foggiest idea what’s gonna happen. And so everybody’s just been occupying time and taking up space with all of had to predictive analysis before something even happens. And it’s all part of trying to guess who it’s gonna be so that when a nominee is chosen, whoever predicted it can rise up and say, “See? See? I knew, I told you so.”

The way I look at this — and I think I used to be one of these navel gazers in a way. I think I used to get caught up in all of the ups, the downs, the pros and cons of each potential nominee and running through them. But this year I’m doing something different. I’ve boiled it down to a different take. Of the names mentioned — they all come from The Federalist society, and they all have to one degree or another the recommendation of all kinds of people I respect. Leonard Leo at the top of the list. The Federalist society members, they’re all good, folks. Any one of these people — Kethledge, Kavanaugh, Amy Barrett — any of these people would be fine with me. I would be ecstatic with any of them.

I think rather than the individual that is chosen — and you can disagree with this — but to me the important factor here is getting confirmed. And the soonest, because that’s crucial. This has to happen before the Democrats get to go home for two months and campaign and start destroying whoever this nominee is.

And the reason why this navel-gazing bothers me, I take you back to the January 2012 Republican presidential — it’s a primary, and George Stephanopoulos asking Romney if states should have the right to ban contraceptives. And of course it wasn’t even being discussed. It wasn’t part of the Republican debate. It wasn’t part of the Republican primary.

And it took Romney by total surprise. Of all the things Romney and any one of the other Republicans prepped for, I guarantee you none of them had prepped for a question from the former member of the Clinton war room, George Stephanopoulos, asking if states should have the right to ban contraceptives. And Romney pretty much said that.

But Stephanopoulos wouldn’t go away. And he kept pushing and pushing, and finally Romney answered, and that was the end of it. Whatever the answer was, it didn’t matter. They got Romney answering the question. So then an entire new War on Women news cycle was created with Romney suggesting that states ought to have the right to ban contraceptives. It’s a states’ rights issue, it was a constitutional issue, but it was easily manipulated into an issue of Romney hating women.

And of course Romney behaved politely and civilly and with great manners and never objected to any of it, and so the process of destroying Romney began. And this is all we’re gonna be hearing about for the next three months. Contraceptives, abortion, pro-life this, pro-life that, pro-choice here, pro-life there. What I think ought to happen, Grassley and McConnell should just schedule a hearing and a floor vote the week after Trump nominates whoever it is, next week, if it’s Kethledge, if it’s Kavanaugh, if it’s Amy Coney Barrett, schedule the hearing and a floor vote next week.

Schedule it for when the Democrats think they’re going home to campaign. Do not let them get out of town to start campaigning and destroying whoever the nominee is before the hearings have even begun. We need to stop pretending today, right now, we need to stop pretending the Democrats are interested in good faith. We need to stop pretending the Democrats are interested in a legitimate investigation of a nominee’s record. They don’t care a whit about that. They’re gonna lie about it. They’re gonna expand upon it. They’re gonna make it up if they have to.

Why should we let the Democrats go home for several weeks and then have them hear from Soros and Tom Steyer and the NARAL people and all the Hollywood groups about how they better stay strong and fight Trump on the nominee? ‘Cause you know that’s gonna happen. These Democrats are gonna go home, and they’re gonna be hearing it from everybody. And in the process of trying to placate everybody, they’re gonna start ripping this nominee, whoever it is. It doesn’t matter who it is. That’s why all the navel-gazing to me ki is a bit of an exaggeration. Because whoever the nominee is, the objective is going to be to destroy it.

Now, there’s a caveat to that. I’m seeing in strategic places, such as the New York Times, a piece here by David Leonhardt: “This Is No Time for Liberal Despair.”
This is the third piece that I’ve seen in the last seven days, which is written to liberals reminding them that the odds are very, very good that Trump’s nominee is going to be confirmed because the Republicans have the majority. And if they stay unified, there’s nothing democracy can do.

And then over here you have these three red state Democrats — Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and others — who might go back and forth and might end up supporting a nominee. But this is a third piece. One in the Washington Post, one here in the New York Times, I think another one at Slate or Salon or somewhere telling their readers this nominee is going to be confirmed and it’s no time for despair, it’s no time to start pulling your hair out. This nominee will be confirmed.

The school of thought in these learned leftist circles is that this nominee doesn’t really change the balance either. This is not a liberal judge retiring. This is Kennedy. And more often than not, they’re saying he was in the 5-4 conservative majority. There were two great exceptions to that: gay marriage and same sex bathrooms, whatever the hell else. But those defections, if Kennedy had not made them from the conservative side, has got the liberals focused.

So both sides are trying to plant seeds here that whoever Trump picks is gonna get confirmed. Now, if you believe that, if you think Trump is gonna get his nominee — and I happen to believe that that’s gonna be the case — then put the best and strongest you got up there. Go for it right now. Others are saying, “No, no, no, no, no. Get somebody, get confirmed right now and then wait ’til the next liberal retires or something else happens and because that replacement, that’s gonna be big.”

This kind of navel-gazing is never, ever gonna end. But my point is that what has to happen is the confirmation process needs to start immediately. We control it. We won the election. We control the Senate. This nomination and confirmation process needs to start, it needs to be kept on pace, and it needs to be done so the Democrats have to stay in Washington, don’t get to go home and start hearing it from everybody and start trashing this nominee because that’s going to happen anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me tell you one other thing, folks — and this is really the big thing. The one thing above all else that really, really matters today is that Hillary Clinton is not making this selection for the next person to be the next justice the United States Supreme Court. Above all else, she is not the person making the selection. Just to keep this in perspective, as I say.

And, by the way, there are 10 Democrat senators, not the three the media constantly refers to. There are 10 Democrat senators up for reelection in red states that Trump won handily. It’s never talked about by the media because the media narrative is the Democrats are gonna retake the House, they’re gonna retake the Senate, they’re gonna impeach Trump and everything’s gonna go back to normal. And I think the exact opposite is gonna happen.

I don’t think the Democrats are going to take back anything, contrary to media belief or anything else. The important thing here is to get going on offense on this confirmation hearing ASAP. Don’t sit around and wait weeks and weeks to get this going for the nominee to stop off at every office in the Senate and start making small talk with these Democrat senators. It isn’t gonna matter. Just get it going and done.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. I’m getting a lot of emails. “Rush,” they’re saying, “Rush, don’t fall for these media people who are writing to liberals to give up, that this confirmation’s already guaranteed, already assured, Trump’s gonna get it. They’re just setting you up, Rush. They want you to not pay as much attention. They want you to be overconfident.”

No, no, no, no. Folks, that’s not at all what’s going on here. I’ll tell you what’s going on here. Like this guy David Leonhardt — and he spells it Leon-hardt. I’ve never heard his name pronounced. I don’t purposely mispronounce anybody’s name unless I’m making a very loving and comical parody of things, but I don’t know if he pronounces it Leonhardt or Leonhardt. It could be just a different spelling of Leonard.

But I wish I could remember the name of the other two. They are mainstream leftist journo names. And I think they see the handwriting on the wall. I think these guys are very, very worried, some of them are, at the public radical extremism of the left becoming the face of the Democrat Party. It’s not gonna help them. I really think these pieces are being written to help anti-Trumpers come down off the ledge with a dose of reality.

Now, this piece is called, “This Is No Time for Liberal Despair.” “Step one,” writes Mr. Leonhardt, “be realistic. Trump’s nominee is overwhelmingly likely to be confirmed regardless of what actions Democrats take. Republicans hold the Senate majority, and every Republican senator — yes, including Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — has a history of voting for judges like those Trump is considering. Collins and Murkowski have a script: They make centrist-sounding statements, to shore up their images,” and keep their base happy back home, “and then vote aye.”

Shortly after Justice Anthony Kennedy retired, Fauxcahontas called the coming — he doesn’t call her that. I’m just making that up. “Senator Elizabeth Warren called the coming nomination ‘the fight of our lives.’ It is not. The great political fights are still ahead. When a new justice is sworn in this fall, Democrats should not declare generational defeat or turn on each other. Step two: Don’t lose hope.”

Look, I’m telling you, all the media narratives of how great the Democrats are doing and how poorly Trump is doing, it’s the exact opposite. The polling data all favors Trump on all these big issues. His approval numbers are beginning to inch up. The economic numbers are irrefutably great, and the Republicans are gonna get this nominee. If they stay unified, it’s a slam dunk. There’s nothing the Democrats can do because Harry Reid nuked the filibuster! So there’s nothing that they can do to stop this. And levelheaded Democrats understand this. And it probably is the case.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the Democrats aren’t going to do the usual search, seek, and destroy mission on the nominee. They most certainly are, which is why I think next week after this name is announced tonight, bammo, just get started on the confirmation process. Everybody on the Republican side has stated the objective to get this done before the court begins its next term, October 1st, which is before the midterms, get it done.

This is what winning elections means. Winning elections has consequences. So does losing elections. Winning elections, Trump gets his nominee. And I’m telling you, any of the names that you’ve heard, any of them are gonna be fine. When you start navel-gazing and trying to figure out the pros and cons of each nominee — like, let’s look at Kavanaugh in this regard for a minute. The things that I have seen — and, by the way, as a powerful, influential member of the media, I am the target of much of this attempted influence.

I see a lot of it. And I got a piece last week, “No to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh is Rove’s guy, and Rove is a Bush guy, and the Bushes loathe Trump. Kavanaugh is a setup.” Okay. I take it in, let it go in one ear, come out the other. This featured a picture of Karl Rove with his arm around the shoulders of Brett Kavanaugh showing them as big, good buddies.

Now, the rip on Kavanaugh is that he supposedly thought that a mandate such as the one in Obamacare requiring people to buy a product, i.e., insurance, was perfectly constitutional. Another rap on Kavanaugh is that he was the guy that gave John Roberts the help on rewriting Obamacare to make it constitutional and therefore we don’t want anybody like this.

On the other hand, Kavanaugh is probably, they say, the smartest, he’s the most experienced, he’s had the most time on the bench, he is thoroughly, full bloodedly conservative and all this. Then you get to Kethledge, well, he’s been on the bench less, and therefore there’s less written opinion, less of a target, smaller target, dead center, great Catholic pro-life.

Then they get to Amy Coney Barrett, she’s a problem, said the influence email, she’s a problem. She’s a member of this Catholic sect, and that’s why Dianne Feinstein called her thick with the dogma. She’s a member of this Catholic sect that says women are subservient, that men run the family and men run the houses and men run the rescues of kids in caves and that that won’t fly today. And she’s got seven kids and she’s pro-life and impossible to confirm. You get inundated with this stuff. I’m telling you, any one of these four or five names, I would be immensely happy.

In the case of Kavanaugh and Roberts and Obamacare, when a judge has to decide a case and a judge follows the law in a specific case — I’m gonna make something up just to give you an example. Let’s say there is a case of an employee versus his employer. And the case is heard, and the judge ends up arguing for the employer based on the law. Well, somebody could come along and say, “See? This guy doesn’t care about working people. This guy doesn’t care about average America. He sided with the boss. He sided with the big corporate entity over this lowly employee.”

Well, maybe that was the law. There’s all kinds of cases the vagaries of which average Americans are never gonna know because they’re not gonna read them, and when the law requires a certain rendering, it may conflict with a judge’s chosen social preferences. That’s the point. Judges have to follow the law, not implement their personal policy preferences. And from everything I’ve seen, these four judges do that exactly.

Now, has for Kavanaugh and the mandate and Obamacare — by the way, there’s a rap on Kethledge that, “Don’t be fooled by Kethledge. This guy totally disagrees with Trump on immigration.” So what? If Kethledge judges cases on the basis of law — and there’s evidence that all of these people do — then their personal preferences here really don’t matter. Well, we’re talking about conservative justices, that’s the point. If they’re gonna follow the law, that’s all you can ask of ’em.

It’s the left that substitutes their personal policy preferences, their social, cultural preferences over the law. That’s not what judges on our side are supposed to do. They follow the law, that’s top of the bill for us. Sometimes in following the law, rulings are gonna appear to conflict with what they believe. Some people are gonna end up being unhappy, but that’s just because of the evolution of what people think the court is.

The court is the final authority, the court is where we go to settle the great arguments of who’s right and who’s wrong on all these cultural issues. No, it shouldn’t be. The court’s where you go to get the final answer on the law of something, the case that’s there. But we know the liberal justices, they vote a bloc, and they vote liberal socialism as a bloc regardless what the law is nine out of 10 times.

Believe me, the key here is to get done, get this started. Because you want this done as quickly as possible, especially if you believe these people on the left writing their people to calm down, this is not time to panic, Trump’s going to get his nominee, if you believe that, then let’s make it happen. Get going on it, make it happen, don’t let them go home and campaign and start destroying these people with the media providing all the ammo and all the fuel, just get it done.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me show you how stupid the Democrats are. Maybe I should say “hilarious.” There’s a story out there today that Dick Durbin, senator from Illinois, is suggesting that the Democrat Party sacrifice Senate seats to stop this nomination.

Yesterday on Meet the Depressed, Dick Durbin suggested that stopping the nominee is more important than the upcoming midterm elections. He acknowledged so-called red state Democrats may be tempted to vote for Trump’s selection out of political necessity, but he urged those Democrats to consider more than their political careers.

Dick Durbin is asking other Democrats to put their seats at risk to defeat this nominee. Now, there are 10 red state Democrats. The Drive-Bys are telling you that there are three that might end up voting for any Trump nominee because of Trump’s popularity in their state and they’re up for reelection.

I’m not making a prediction here, but I’m just gonna tell you that before all is said and done on this confirmation, I won’t be surprised if there are more than three Democrats who vote for the nominee. Because the nominee is gonna be a superb person. The nominee is going to be an excellent judge. The nominee is going to be qualified for life.

And these Democrats know that Trump voters, contrary to media attempts to say otherwise, are sophisticated and aware. And that’s what makes this hilarious. You know, every Drive-By Media news story contains a sentence like this. This one’s from a Reuters story this morning. “Senate rules now require only a simple majority of votes to confirm a Supreme Court nomination. Republicans currently control 51 of the 100 seats, although one of their numbers, Senator McCain, is at home in Arizona battling cancer,” the implication being that no Democrats will vote for Trump’s nominee.

There are gonna be more than three, before it’s all said and done. I’m not making the prediction. I’m just telling you I won’t be surprised. So what Durbin’s doing — and, of course, he’s not offering to sacrifice his own seat. No, oh, no. But he’s telling people like Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, “You have a duty, you have a duty to lose your seat in order to stop this nominee. This nomination is more than your seat, more important than your seat.”

Can you imagine one of these three or 10 hearing this guy’s who’s not at risk in his seat saying this? Can I tell you how stupid this is? The next nominee on this court likely is gonna be one of the libs. And if Durbin succeeds in this, the Democrats are gonna have even fewer Senate seats. If his advice is followed and Democrats lose these seats by defeating this nominee, that means when the next liberal justice retires, the Democrats are gonna have even fewer votes to stop whoever Trump nominates to replace.

That’s how shortsighted and stupid this is. That’s why I think these media types trying to calm this down saying, look, Trump’s gonna get his nominee. This one’s not that big a deal. Not what you think. Kennedy was more with the 5-4 majority than he wasn’t. Just back off here. The next one’s what’s really important. And that’s pretty much true.

But this is how Looney Toon they’re getting. Dick Durbin actually advising other Democrats in red states to go ahead and oppose this nominee, vote against the nominee even if it means you lose your seat because your losing your seat is more important. Stopping this nominee is more important than you winning and keeping your seat, is what he’s saying.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Oh, hey, before we go to the phones I was gonna go back. Grab sound bite number 3. I want you to hear this sound bite. This is Mr. Leonard Leo. Leonard Leo is a prominent Federalist Society member. He’s probably the leading member of the team that Trump turns to for advice on Supreme Court nominees. He accompanied Justice Scalia on many of Scalia’s speaking engagements. Leonard Leo and Scalia were close. They were inseparable.

I’ve had the good fortunate to meet and chat with Leonard Leo on numerous occasions. And for these purposes he’s one of the good guys. You can totally trust his advice, comments, his intentions. He was on CNN this morning with John Berman. And the question, “Is it possible that one reason the president doesn’t want to answer the question directly about a potential nominee’s position on Roe is that more than 60% of people in polling over the last two weeks say they don’t want to see Roe overturned?”

LEO: All I can tell you is the process doesn’t focus on that. The process focuses much more broadly on the business of judging, what it means to be fair and impartial. And that has to do with interpreting the law, it has to do with recognizing the structural limits on government power. It doesn’t have to do with issues. We bring the court too much into politics when we start asking ourselves, how is a judge gonna decide this particular case or that particular case? And I don’t think the American people want judges who are gonna have predetermined results in particular cases.

RUSH: Now, my guess is that that went in one ear and out the other with John Berman over at CNN. I’m not sure he was able to keep up with that. To the media, the court is there for one reason. That is to backstop liberalism, to stop conservatism, and to promote the establishment of liberalism as law. That’s the purpose of the Supreme Court.

So anybody Trump might nominate — that’s why they’re focused on Roe v. Wade. Is Trump gonna nominate somebody that wants to overturn Roe — ’cause all that matters to them is the issue of Roe v. Wade and abortion and keeping it legal to kill babies in the womb. That’s all that matters to them for whatever crazy reasons they’ve got. It’s one of the reasons they identify themselves. It’s sick, what they have done with this issue. But they’re single tunnel visioned on it.

And what Mr. Leo is saying here that I’m sure was strange, any one issue is gonna be taken care of by judges who follow the law. It’s that simple. The Supreme Court’s not a political backstop. The Supreme Court is not where you go for final adjudication of political disputes. The legislature’s supposed to do that. So Mr. Leo is telling Berman, you don’t even know the process here. You don’t even know. The president’s not asking these people, “Well, how are you gonna vote on that issue and that issue.” He’s looking at people that know the Constitution and believe it, have reverence for it, and they’re going to decide cases on the basis of the original intent of the Constitution.

It’s no more complicated than that. And that just flies by all these leftists, because not doing that is how they — do you realize how much of liberalism has become a part of our culture without ever having been voted on by the elected representatives of the people? I need to prepare a list of things. You will be stunned when you learn of all of the things that now have become law of the land not by virtue of legislation or by the votes and debates of the elected representatives of the people. And abortion, Roe v. Wade, it’s at the top of that list. You’d be blown away by it.

Anyway, let’s go back to the phones. This is Aaron in Huron, South Dakota. I’m glad you called, sir. It’s great to have you with us.

CALLER: It’s a pleasure to speak you to you, Rush. Great show, great staff, great insights. And I was hoping to get some of that from you.

RUSH: I appreciate that. Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: My question is about turnout. I agree with you that likely Trump gets his nominee, regardless of who it is, but how does he take this and potentially turn it into something more? More specifically, does Trump want a fight potentially to be able to paint the Democrats as, for example, anti-religion, anti-female, depending on who the pick is? I mean, I think he can take this not just as a win, but potentially something bigger. Is he the first president to use this to take it to a —

RUSH: You know something? I have to tell you — (crosstalk)

CALLER: — after the election. Thank you.

RUSH: Aaron, you are very, very shrewd. Your question betrays a brilliance that I often do not encounter on this program, even among some of my staff. Of course, I encounter my own brilliance each and every day and am therefore used to encountering and brushing up against brilliance, but you, let me tell you why. You have deduced what I believe is the genuine political brilliance of Donald Trump. And he’s getting away with political brilliance because the left precisely does not consider himself capable of brilliance in anything.

But Donald Trump almost single-handedly — none of the Never Trump conservatives ever did this. And very few conservative media people have ever pulled it off, present company excluded. What Donald Trump is doing is forcing the American left to reveal itself to the American people uncamouflaged, undisguised, almost on a weekly or daily basis to their detriment and to his benefit.

So the answer to your question is, does he want a fight? I think, if I could answer for President Trump, I think what he would really prefer is a unified country and we nominate somebody that sails through because all he’s interested in is making America great again. And he wants this country to be great, and he wants it to have its roots deep, deep, deep to our founding.

But, given that’s not the reality, he does relish a fight in which the left is going to expose itself. He relishes a fight where the left goes crazy and loses its mind and tells the American people by action and word exactly who they are. And I think that is part of the ongoing Trump political strategy day to day in the White House, independent of court picks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Walton Hills, Ohio. Jim, glad you called, sir. How are you doing today?

CALLER: Pretty good, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: Good. Thank you.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. So I was just curious about Trump’s nominating, or possibly nominating, Judge Amy Barrett. Do you think that would maybe help him garner the women’s vote for the 2020 cycle?

RUSH: It may, but he doesn’t have to nominate her now in order to pull that off. Now, this is the navel-gazing and the thinking that her nomination will produce. She’s a woman, and the conventional wisdom is that a woman will be much tougher to oppose because the Democrats are pro-woman and they’re pro-feminist. Wrong. The Democrats are gonna try to ruin whoever the nominee is. But just as they tried to destroy Clarence Thomas because he was considered to be an African-American off the plantation, so will Amy Barrett be seen.

This woman, seven kids, no abortions. Very Catholic. Dianne Feinstein, in her hearing, said on the circuit court said the Catholic dogma is really thick with you. And she’s said to be part of a sect of Catholicism that acknowledges that the husband runs the family. I think she’d be treated as a traitor to the cause of feminism. I think the long knives would be out for her.

Now, your question has to do would it increase the female vote by appointing a woman. It’s not gonna get any feminists to support Trump. That’s all bogus. That’s why I said, if he gave them everything that they want, they’re gonna oppose him. Trump needs to put the best people on this bench and the people at the time who can be most easily confirmed.

I think he’s gonna wait for Amy Barrett until, for example, if Ruth “Buzzi” Ginsburg retires, then, you know, fill that seat with a woman. I think it will be somebody else this time around, but I’m not disappointed if it is her; don’t misunderstand.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Laurie in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Hi.

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  It’s an honor to speak to you.  Listen, about our Supreme Court nominee, we… (sigh) We not only need a conservative constitutionalist, we need a nominee with a very strong personal constitution, one with a backbone, because in the past, you know, we thought we were gonna get a conservative.  We ended up with John Roberts.  Big disappointment.  So I’ll tell you: If I was Trump, that’s exactly what I would be looking for.  I would be looking for that that can take the heat and when the decisions get tough and controversial and there’s a lot of flak, he’s gotta be that person that can stand and stand and not worry about what the left is saying against him.

RUSH:  I think that the four or five names that we are hearing that are on this list will pass that test, Laurie. I really do.

CALLER:  Well, I hope so, because it’s just —

RUSH:  Is there any one of them you’re worried about?  I must you must be, if you say that.

CALLER:  I don’t know them.  I don’t read their decisions, so I really don’t know.  But it’s so many times where you elect a conservative, you put him in office and as soon as the frying pan gets hot, boy, they’re ready to cave.  And that’s what happened with John Roberts.

RUSH:  Let me tell you something about this, Laurie.  I know exactly what you’re saying, but sometimes it happens for reasons that you can’t predict.  I can count on one hand the number of friends of mine who were conservative as I am 25, 20 years ago.  Their kids get to college, and they become libs, just like their kids become.  I’ve seen it, and I’ve been aghast by it (sigh), and it manifests itself as them saying, “You know, do you ever want to do something else?

“You’ve been doing the same things for years. Aren’t you tired of saying this stuff?  Look, I want… Immigration? There’s nothing wrong with immigration.  I’ve lived out here all my life. These people that come in this country do nothing but help it.” I say, “What in the world happened here?” and I find out later kids go to college, come back, and it’s all about family unity and so forth.  By the way, if I’m sounding critical, I don’t mean to be.  I’m not critical.  I’m not naming anybody.  I’m just telling you that people can, in your words, might go wobbly for any number of reasons.

CALLER:  Well, we know it happens with education, you know, they go off to college and —

RUSH:  Yeah.

CALLER:  — of course, that’s it. I sent my kids to… Both our sons we sent to conservative Christian schools.  But even beyond that, they’re not only getting into colleges.  I mean, now it’s so bad, it’s in the pulpits.

RUSH:  Yeah.  I know.

CALLER:  You know, that would be the one place that you would expect that there would be conservatism —

RUSH:  No!

CALLER:  — because that’s what —

RUSH:  No!

CALLER:  — are our biblical values.

RUSH:  No, no, no, no.  No.  When the left convinced the clergy that socialism is charity? (Snort!) It was over.  So much of the clergy is leftists because, to them, it’s all charity.  It’s “taking from the haves and distributing to the have-nots, and who can oppose that?  That’s what we’re here to do! That’s what the Lord said.”  Blah, blah, blah.  Ever since the redistribution of wealth ceased being seen as confiscating people’s money and instead was seen as charity (Pshew!), it was over.  You would think, you would think the clergy would epitomize conservatism.  But, you know, my point is what you’ve made, too: The forces are everywhere.  They come from everywhere working on people.  That’s why it is a daily diligence.  But these people, I think they’ve already been through the mill and tested just to get where they are.  I appreciate the comment.  Gotta run.  Wish I had more time, but I don’t.