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Republican_Man
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 Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:19 pm Bush & Cheney testify before 9/11 Commission (Rush's tak |
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| Fox News wrote: | Bush 'Glad' He Met With 9/11 Panel
Friday, April 30, 2004
WASHINGTON � President Bush (search) said he was glad he and Vice President Dick Cheney (search) met Thursday behind closed doors with the panel investigating what went wrong with U.S. intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden after the meeting, Bush described it as "a good conversation. ... It was wide-ranging. It was important. It was just a good discussion.
"They had a lot of good questions. I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time. It's important that they asked the questions they asked ... I answered every question that they asked," Bush said, declining to describe the details of the meeting but acknowledging that Al Qaeda is still a threat to the United States.
The 10 commissioners arrived at the White House at about 9:15 a.m. and gathered around Bush and Cheney, who were seated on chairs near the fireplace in the Oval Office. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and two unidentified members of his staff joined the session, which began sharply at the scheduled 9:30 a.m. appointment time.
"Ninety-nine percent of the questions were directed to the president," one of two participants in the Oval Office meeting that spoke to Fox News said. "He answered them all ... and didn't have to turn to anyone for guidance," said another. "He knew them all."
Sources also told Fox News "everyone got to ask all the questions they could think of." Some of the questioning was sharp but the president answered all questions in a "direct and businesslike manner."
At one point, one participant told Fox News, one of the commissioners apparently delivered a lengthy statement not unlike those in the public sessions. The president teased a couple of the commissioners about that but in a way that got a laugh even from Richard Ben-Veniste. One source said the whole session "was in very good humor." A second said, "The atmosphere was very cordial."
One of the participants said the commission learned some things and the president learned some things. He also told Fox News the president was able to straighten out some things where there had been inconsistencies between some other people's testimony. Cheney was said to have filled in some things and "was a real help."
"It was a big success for all parties," said one of the sources. And he said it was clear from the session that "the president really does want to work with us now." The second participant said the president was confident and knowledgeable and was "really interested in our views."
After the meeting, Bush said that his counsel never advised him not to answer any questions. He said Cheney too answered all the questions posed to him.
"I was impressed by the questions, I think it helped them understand how I run the White House,' Bush said. "I wanted them to know how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats."
After the meeting, the commission released a statement in which it thanked the two leaders.
"The commission found the president and the vice president forthcoming and candid. The information they provided will be of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report. We thank the president and the vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission," the statement read.
Bush said he did not want to go into details of the report because he thought they would come out when the panel publishes its report in July. He did, however, say that Al Qaeda continues to be a threat and the United States is still vulnerable to attack.
"Al Qaeda still exists, Al Qaeda's dangerous, Al Qaeda hates us, and we have to be correct 100 percent of the time in defending America and they've got to be right once. And therefore we are vulnerable," Bush said.
"We, the government, at all levels, are working long hours to protect America. We're doing the best we can. The best way to secure America, however, is to stay on the offensive and bring those people to justice before they harm America again," he added.
Bush and Cheney were not under oath, and no recording of the proceedings took place. The White House said it has no plans to report the remarks by the president and vice president -- in part, aides say, because much of the discussion is classified.
The commission's interviews with former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore were recorded.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday that the meeting was private and will be reflected in the commission's final report.
"This is a good opportunity for the president to sit down with members of the commission and talk with them about the seriousness with which we took the threat from Al Qaeda (search), the steps we were taking to confront it and how we have been responding to the attacks of Sept. 11," McClellan said Thursday, shortly after the session began.
The White House claimed it was sensitive about the separation of powers (search) issue, giving authority to a commission created by Congress to grill the president.
"It is extraordinary for the president to sit down with a legislatively-created commission, but the circumstances [of Sept. 11] were extraordinary," McClellan said after the session ended.
Bush "has provided the 9/11 commission unprecedented access to information including the nation's most sensitive national intelligence documents. He very much supports the work of the commission. He looks forward to seeing their recommendations and acting on their recommendations."
Peter Wallison, former White House counsel in the Reagan administration, said he believes the administration wanted the session kept private in order to make sure that a precedent was not set about executives testifying to congressional entities.
"It's important for this commission to get information from the president and vice president. The commission could not have done its work without getting information from them," Wallison said. But, he added, "This is very, very unusual for a president to meet with an organization established by Congress in an investigative mode. In order to make sure that it's not a regular thing for presidents and vice presidents to do, it was important to set ground rules."
One analyst suggested the White House was refusing to allow a tape recording or transcript of the session because it wouldn't give the administration any political advantage.
"If they thought it would help him, they'd televise it," James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (search), said of White House advisers' decision to keep the meeting's contents under wrap. "And obviously they don't think it will help him, and so they are not."
"The thing that is most unfortunate is that there won't be even a redacted transcript. The American people deserve to hear the president's explanation," said Jack Quinn, former White House counsel and chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore.
McClellan said the interview should not be seen as testimony or an attempt by the panel to find out whether Bush is to blame for not preventing the attacks. Instead, Bush was contributing to the process of learning from Sept. 11, McClellan said, by putting into perspective the substantial information the White House has already provided.
"The commissioners will speak for themselves over time. They will let you know whether they thought it was a fruitful series of discussions. I think they did. I think they found it to be useful," Bush said.
The process, however, has taken on something of an adversarial tone, with Democrats saying the president abdicated his responsibility before the attacks and Republican lawmakers charging that commissioner Jamie Gorelick (search), President Clinton's deputy attorney general, should be forced to testify in front of the panel, since they say she was intimately involved with building the bureaucratic wall that separated criminal prosecutions and terrorism investigations before the attacks.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday that the commission may not have been intended as a partisan investigation, but it sure is taking a combative tone.
"My understanding of the 9/11 commission was that it was to impartially determine the facts and make non-partisan recommendations on how to go forward. But so far, the 9/11 commission's descent into 'gotcha' questioning has only highlighted a tendency to fight each other rather than the terrorists. Unfortunately, while American politicians are busy blaming each other, the terrorists are busy plotting our doom."
Relatives of the Sept. 11 attacks said they hoped the commissioners would ask Bush and Cheney whether the administration was inattentive when intelligence warnings in the summer of 2001 increasingly pointed to a domestic attack, and whether the government's emergency response on Sept. 11 too slow.
"The purpose is not to lay blame, but to assess possible reforms," said Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, N.J., whose husband, Ronald, was killed in the World Trade Center.
One key question Bush was likely to have been asked is how he dealt with information one month before the attacks that indicated Al Qaeda (search) seemed interested in hijacking a plane and planning attacks with explosives within the United States. Bush has said previously there was nothing in that Aug. 6 memo that indicated "something is about to happen in America."
Bush and Cheney were also expected to confront questions about whether they were too distracted by the possibility of attacking Iraq to pay attention to warnings of an impending terror attack. Reporter Bob Woodward (search) and former White House terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke (search) separately contend that Bush and Cheney were fixated on finding an Iraqi link to the attacks. The administration has denied it.
McClellan said the president spent the past few days reviewing materials from the period around the attacks to refresh his memory and talking with the vice president and several other senior officials, including Chief of Staff Andy Card, who first told him of the attacks during a trip to Sarasota, Fla.
The effect of Bush and Cheney's classified Q&A session with the commissioners might not be known until the panel releases its final report, which is due out this summer, about three months before the fall presidential election and at the start of the Democratic National Convention.
"It's very important because of the timing, just before the election," Thurber said. Bush "is very strong in the polls on homeland security, and this may undermine it a little bit."
But Washington Times Senior White House Correspondent Bill Sammon argued that "when you talk about this, it reminds people of Bush's leadership after 9/11, which is a great asset. ... Most Americans don�t think that President Bush or President Clinton could have realistically prevented these unimaginable attacks of 9/11. ... I just don�t see where there is a fruitful political path here for either side."
Washington Post White House Correspondent Dana Milbank told Fox News that the meeting may even boost Bush "by turning attention to terrorism where the president is the strongest."
Fox News' Peter Brownfeld, Jim Angle, Wendell Goler and Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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Here's RUSH LIMBAUGH's take from today's hearing
| 'Maha-Rushie,' Best Radio Talkshow Host ever wrote: | 9/11 Commissioners Leave Early
April 29, 2004
Get this, folks. 9/11 Commission members Lee Hamilton, the co-chair, and Bob Kerrey left the White House before the president and vice president had completed their testimony germane to the commission inquiry. Hamilton left early because of a scheduling conflict! This was supposed to be the most important day for these people on this commission, and they couldn't clear their schedules?
During Thursdays program, we joined in progress the president's remarks and quick Q & A in the Rose Garden after his meeting with the commission, but the fireworks went off while we were in an EIB profit center timeout, when John King at CNN asked the president if he and Vice President Cheney testified together in order to keep their stories straight, implying, of course, that they planned on lying and that they had coordinated their lies.
I can understand the question, because that's what the liberals have set up. If King didn't ask that, he'd be over at Fox tomorrow. Let's just take a hypothetical for you libs. Let me speak your language for a minute. If Bush and Cheney were going to lie, don't you think they can set it up beforehand and know what each other are going to say and then make sure they say it and go in separately? John King had to ask that question, because the true implication of the question is, "Wasn't Cheney in there to make sure you got the story right, since you are such a doofus idiot you don't even know what happened in Iraq because you didn't have anything to do with it because you don't even get up till noon, Cheney is running this whole show, and he had to be in there to have the answers because you don't know what's happened?" That's what the libs think.
Our buddies at Newsmax.com report that Bill Clinton did not testify alone. Did you hear about this? Probably not, if you're watching and reading the partisan media who are saying that when Clinton testified behind the 9/11 Commission, he was in there for four hours and he was so cooperative and he didn't have anybody helping him out. It turns out Sandy Berger and Bruce Lindsey were at his side. He had two little helpers with him. I guess the reporters just missed this. Don't forget, folks that Bruce Lindsey replaced Mack McLarty as Clinton's director of cover-ups. If there's anybody making sure Clinton gets his story right, it's Bruce Lindsey.
You know, you can look at this oil-for-food program to find out where all the corruption is in the world today. The Democrats, and the left, want you to believe that Cheney, Halliburton and Bush went to Iraq for oil. Then you look at the oil-for-food program and you find out that it was France and Germany and a number of other nations and people around the world who were paid off with oil bribes and money by Saddam Hussein for opposing the United States at the United Nations. And you can look at that list of people who were corrupted and who were bribed by Saddam, and you won't find the names Halliburton or Cheney, nor will you find Bush on any of those lists.
Here we have Clinton being portrayed as clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. This is a guy who had a director of cover-ups. Another thing to keep in mind, folks, is that presidents and vice-presidents do not testify before legislative committees, and this commission is an appendage of Congress.
On September 8th, 1974, Gerald Ford granted a full pardon to Richard Nixon. He voluntarily -- and that's the key -- appeared before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives on October 17th to explain his reasoning. It's the first time an incumbent president had formally testified before a committee of Congress. Presidents and vice-presidents don't appear before Congress. Ford's appearance was a modern exception to the rule. What Bush and Cheney did for this commission was out of the ordinary. |
Your take?
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:31 am |
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THey been saying Bush knew 9/11 was going to happen to bash him. Which is bull, he did not know. He is not God or a pychic.
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Arellia
The Quiet One
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 4425
Location: Dallas, TX
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| Fri Apr 30, 2004 10:39 am |
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I would of course agree with kmma, he didn't know; any sane person who HAD known this would happen would certainly not let it pass...well, one would think, anyway.
| Quote: | | "If they thought it would help him, they'd televise it," James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (search), said of White House advisers' decision to keep the meeting's contents under wrap. "And obviously they don't think it will help him, and so they are not." |
^That would be what I would call grasping at straws. I was glad the president and vice president went before the council; and if this is the kind of argument the other side's going to make, that's just sad. It sounded to me like Bush and Cheney were rather forthcoming.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
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| Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:24 pm |
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| B'Ellanna_Torrez wrote: | I would of course agree with kmma, he didn't know; any sane person who HAD known this would happen would certainly not let it pass...well, one would think, anyway.
| Quote: | | "If they thought it would help him, they'd televise it," James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (search), said of White House advisers' decision to keep the meeting's contents under wrap. "And obviously they don't think it will help him, and so they are not." |
^That would be what I would call grasping at straws. I was glad the president and vice president went before the council; and if this is the kind of argument the other side's going to make, that's just sad. It sounded to me like Bush and Cheney were rather forthcoming. |
^I agree...And yes, the Liberals are now saying that they should have televised it...That it DOES NOTHING...Shows nothing...Well, you get the arguement...
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
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| Sat May 01, 2004 12:41 am |
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Here's his perspective as of Friday...I agree with ALL of it, yet again...
Or, listen to the TRUTH at http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_043004/content/truth_detector.guest.html
| El Rushbo wrote: | The Misunderestimating Continues
April 30, 2004
Listen to Rush�
(...explain how Bush's 9/11 testimony destroyed the myth of him as dolt)
END TRANSCRIPT
Let's revisit yesterday, and let's go to the White House. We know yesterday that at 9:30, members of the 9/11 commission were unfairly sardined into the Oval Office, where they were to grill and interrogate the president and his handler, Dick Cheney, and we know, ladies and gentlemen -- you know something? If we went (I was thinking about this last night) if we would just go after Osama bin Laden as fiercely as the left is going after Bush, we might find the guy! I can just hear these Democrats. Why do you think Lee Hamilton and Bob Kerrey left? They said they had a scheduling conflict.
Here's what happened: You've got the vice-chairman of the commission and Bob Kerrey, and they left about a half hour or 45 minutes before the president and his handler, his teacher, his mentor, Dick Cheney finished telling Bush what to say when. And that went from 9:30 to 12:40, so it was three hours and ten minutes. That was much longer than anybody expected it to go. I'll admit that. But here you're the committee co-chairman and Bob Kerrey, one of the leading Democrats, demanding this and you've been insisting on it and so the president gives time and all of a sudden you have a "scheduling conflict"? So they leave because of a scheduling conflict.
Now, that started a lot of speculation. Why would they leave? One of the things I thought of was that there was an attitude that some members of the commission took into the Oval Office yesterday, "All right, we're going to get SOB today! (rubbing hands together) This is it. This is where we find out that Bush doesn't know what he's doing. This is where we blame Bush. This is where we are going to get Bush to admit it's his fault. This is where we, the commission, are going to get Bush to admit that he's sorry. This is when we're going to get an apology." And they went in there, and apparently none of that happened because there are so precious few leaks. In fact, I would say there are no leaks -- and I'll tell you something else. How is it that you have Bush and Cheney and Bush's lawyer, his council, Albert Gonzales, and Clinton goes in with two people, and the press doesn't report it, doesn't make a big deal about it.
(Clinton) went in there with Bruce Lindsey, who was Clinton's director of cover-ups, and with Sandy Berger. But no, we heard [Liberal media gushing voice:], "Clinton went four hours and he was brilliant, and he was forthcoming, and he -- oh, it was so...! He gave us more time than we eeeever dreeeeamed (crying) and he had no notes, and he was all by himself!" He wasn't all by himself. Two other guys with him! But it doesn't get reported. So I thought the Democrats on the commission would be kind of like the Democrats on the Iran-Contra committee when if he finally got Ollie North up there. Remember that? They just knew that they were again get Reagan. They just knew that North was going to give them the goods and of course North ran rings around them and made fools out of them, and I'm wondering if maybe the same thing didn't happen yesterday.
They always "misunderestimate" George W. Bush. That's his word, by the way, "misunderestimate." This is the same vocabulary as the word "strategery." They always misunderestimate him, and I think that they were -- I'll betcha they were � dazzled. In fact we've got some quotes from some of the people there characterizing what happened, and Bob Kerrey said, 'We learned some surprising things, and there were some new things." Bob Kerrey is one of the guys that left early. Now, if there's something "new" and something "surprising," why did Bob Kerrey leave early? Could it have been out of disappointment? Could it have been, "Ah, this isn't going the way we thought. We had him cornered in the White House. He was huddled in there with his #2, al-Ja Cheney." If the left was as interested in national security as they are in Democrat Party security, we might just have a United States. It is just amazing.
[Reading from AP:] " President Bush defended his administration's efforts to stop terrorist strikes and assessed the nation's potential vulnerabilities to attack in an extraordinary [italics added] meeting with the Sept. 11 commission, setting the stage for the panel to focus on reform proposals as it finishes its work." [Chairman] Thomas Kean said, "It was an extraordinarily good meeting. The president was forthright. We said we hoped we could test some things out as to whether some of recommendations we were considering were indeed practical. The president said he was open to some ideas, and nothing was ruled out." Bob Kerrey said, "It was a very good meeting. I do think it'll help � in particular the president's description of what happened during 2001 and most particularly on 9/11."
[AP:] "Kerrey (said) 'some of the answers as 'surprising' and 'new' but declined to give details. 'I think the less I say that could be construed as critical, the better chance we have of reaching consensus when we write our final report.'" What always happens is that the left in this country, Democrats, are always underestimating Republican presidents, underestimated Reagan big time and consistently, and they underestimate Bush. They always assume that...and it's sort of like Tina Brown and the waiter. If we go back to "the serious Manhattan dinner party" yesterday and we reread that story in the Washington Post, her column, about the serious diners, the very serious Manhattan power players who were interrupted during the dessert by a peasant, the waiter, who was serving them dessert to tell them he liked Bush.
The people there look at the waiter like the left in this country looks at Bush: as a peasant. He's an idiot. He's a rube. He's a dupe. How could you ever be in a position of power over us? and I think they probably went in and I'll betcha they were surprised. I think these people probably know Bush only from media characterizations and what they think by virtue of their own biases and clich�s and stereotypes, and I betcha they went in there and I bet they were stunned. I bet they were stunned with his intelligence. I bet they were stunned with his compassion. I bet they were stunned with his command of the facts. Cheney didn't speak much, by the way, to put the lie to all this notion that Bush can't speak without Cheney feeding him the answers.
The only time Cheney spoke up -- this has leaked out, and for this to leak out and nothing else is an indication of how well it went in there, depending on your perspective. Here again, to the left it didn't go well because the president did well. I mean, stop and think of that! Here we are in the middle of war, and we're trying to find out and get to the bottom of 9/11, stop it again, president does well, Democratic Party is upset. Anyway, the only time Cheney spoke up was when Bush was asked a question and didn't have the details because he and Cheney were at different places. And so Cheney had to provide some answers, but they were very few, and very sparse. The president did much of the talking -- and the president threw them two curve balls when it was over. First thing he did was come out and had that Rose Garden ceremony, and he came out and he talked about how wonderful it was and how happy he was that he had done it and how excited he felt to have done it; how helpful it was and how important it was and how a lot of good things had happened in this meeting and we've got a good future as a result of it, and then he came out and ripped Ashcroft.
He came out -- and this just stupefies people. I'm going to have to try to explain this to you. [Washington Times story:] " President Bush rebuked the Justice Department yesterday for posting on its website memos revealing how intricately involved...Jamie S. Gorelick was in crafting the U.S. counterterror policies she is now judging." (Scott) McClellan said, the (White House) spokesman, "We were not involved in that," meaning the release. Said, "I think the president was disappointed about that. I think it's been communicated to the justice department." Now, because of the memo being released, there's all this action and demand that Gorelick be either forced to resign from the commission or change sides; go over there and answer some questions because she authored the memo that set up the wall that prevented the sharing of intelligence data with justice department officials or law enforcement officials, and it literally was a wall.
Bush (sighs). This could go one of three ways. Let's look at the first two. The first thing is it's genuine, that Bush really didn't want it to be released, and he's upset that Ashcroft did it. You ask, "Well, why would that be the case?" My friends, look at the domestic agenda for your answer. Look at all the education spending. Look at the new Medicare entitlement. Look at campaign finance reform. Look at steel tariffs. You will find... I think... It's going to be tough for me to express. There's a characteristic of George Bush, I think, that -- and this is one of a couple possibilities here. I only mention it first because I think it probably is the more likely of the two. I don't think Bush has... (pause) I was going to say, "I think Bush is who he is. He's just up front." It's like when he went to the newspaper editors and called them "the Politburo" and was laughing and loose and having a great time. He doesn't care what people think of him.
I think he has an exalted view of the presidency, and I don't think that he wants his presidency to be judged to be political or partisan. I think he wants his presidency to be judged on the basis that he as president was doing what he thought was needed and best at the time for the country as a whole, and I think that he is upset at the partisan divide that exists in the country now because of the war and the terrorist attack in Iraq. I don't think he wants to do anything to further it, other than doing what he thinks is right as president. But getting into these partisan spats is something he considers above the presidency, and he doesn't want any of his representatives doing any. They'll take all the partisan attacks all day long. That's what the presidency is for to him.
The presidency is the highest thing in this country. It's supposed to be scrutinized; it's supposed to be attacked. People are supposed to be suspicious. People are supposed to have curiosity; people are supposed to be skeptical. He understands that; he doesn't care. He's going to do what he thinks is right, but he's not going to enter and join the fray in the gutter that the opposition party has set up, and I think that's the way he looks at it and he's going to let the chips fall where they may. I think one of the reasons so many of us get upset with the president is that he's not a partisan in this sense. He doesn't say the things we'd like him to say; he doesn't do the things that we'd like him to do at all times. He doesn't take the battle to them in a tit-for-tat partisan or political sense.
He just governs the way he thinks best, and if people like it, fine. If they don't, fine. If he wins, fine. If he loses, fine. Now, I may not be adequately explaining this to the point that you all understand it, because obviously there are exceptions to everything. I mean, he has done things that are partisan and political. He does rope-a-dope 'em on several things, but when it comes to something as serious as this, I don't think he wants his administration. He hates leaks. He despises them. There's something. That's probably my #1. The #2 possibility is -- and this is just the opposite. This is possibly based on cynicism. Number two possibility is that he thoroughly approved of Ashcroft doing this, thoroughly approved of that memo going out.
After all he's president, the justice department is not going to act alone without his approval, but when it hits he wants to stay above the fray by expressing his disagreement with it after the fact. It still happened, and Ashcroft said what he said, and it caused all of the hubbub, but the president after the fact says, "I wish it hadn't happened; it won't happen again. That's not what my presidency is known for. We're not going to be doing this kind of thing. We're upset about it," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So take your pick. One of those two. I happen to think, and I'm not looking through rose-colored glasses and I'm not na�ve when it comes to this man. I happen to think it's the former. I happen to think that he has such an exalted view of the institution of the presidency that he doesn't want anything his administration does to tarnish it, as happened in the previous eight years. That's how I would explain the upset that he expressed yesterday with Ashcroft over this memo.
RUSH: (Laughing) Gary, Covington, Kentucky. Hello, welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, dittos, mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: And I got the secret password so I was able to get through. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, you know, what you were just talking about with Bush and, you know, how he is mischaracterized and underestimated and all this stuff. And, you know, if you go back to 2000, and when he was running against Gore, and, you know, he has been very consistent with his presidency in terms of what he has ran against, what he has followed through on. He's been that compassionate conservative that he ran on with the health care plan and the educational bill. I mean, he's come through with all these things, and you've talked repeatedly over the course of the years how, you know, Democrats don't want to work with him, and they don't like him because he believes in something, and he stands up for what he believes in, and he's not that partisan guy that they would love to be, you know, able to rip and --
RUSH: And I think -- you know, let's not get sidetracked. I'm not saying you are. I'm saying I don't want to get sidetracked with arguing all over again the merits, ideologically, of the domestic agenda. That's not why I bring this up because we've been there and done that and we've explained what's going on. I think you have a point. What I want to add to what you're saying is, "I think this actually is the root of the hatred for Bush, is that he is not partisan. He doesn't engage them. He ignores them for the most part."
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And does what he's going to do anyway, and I think there are many reasons for their hatred. There's many reasons for their sheer, unadulterated hatred, above and beyond Florida 2000. I think a large part of it is just who he is. He's a man of principle, and men of principles are rock solid, and they're known quantities and they're not malleable, and they do not respond to the typical, Democrat assassination type political moves. They don't respond, he doesn't feel, he just doesn't react to them, just keeps doing what he's going to do, and he'll occasionally -- like he took out after Daschle in New Jersey in the campaign of 2002 -- but he chooses his moments very carefully.
CALLER: Sure he does, and, you know, there was -- I heard Ollie North say once, not too long ago, actually, and I thought he nailed it. He went back to the debate with Gore, and when they asked Gore and Bush who was the most influential person in their life, and Bush said, "Jesus Christ," and he said, 'From that moment forward the Democrats were absolutely enraged with this guy.'
RUSH: Weeell, that may be. I don't think there's one thing. I don't think you can isolate one thing to explain their hatred. It's a combination of things. It's not just Bush. I think... Folks, look, here's the bottom line. The primary explanation for the Democrat hatred and rage is that they hate themselves. They don't like themselves; they don't like where they are; they don't like what they've become, pure and simple.
END TRANSCRIPT |
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