Liberal World Turned Upside Down by Facts

December 22, 2005

Despite my best efforts to not hit button number four, my finger hit
button number four; and up popped CNN, and I'm listening to Wolf
Blitzer talking to their legal expert Jeffrey Toobin, and their world
has been turned upside down because they have just learned that the
Clinton administration also signed executive orders.

Bill Clinton personally signed executive orders authorizing
warrantless searches of American citizens for the purposes of domestic
spying. Now, of course this doesn't fit the template. The template is,
this never happened until Bush did it. There was no president who ever
exercised this kind of authority and broke the law until Bush did it.
But the problem is that the Washington Post in 1994 had a story
quoting Jamie Gorelick not only suggesting that they did it, but
suggesting that they had the inherent authority to do it without even
telling Congress about it, and you could just hear this upset the
whole apple cart. This just shattered the world view. This can't be
happening! So Wolf brings in Toobin, the legal beagle, the legal
expert, to ask him to interpret this, and Blitzer says, "Jeffrey, did
the Clinton administration essentially suggest that they were entitled
to do exactly what the Bush administration has now done?"

RUSH: So let's go now to the Washington Times today, headline by
Charles Hurt: "Warrantless Searches Not Unprecedented." I told you
this earlier in the week. "Previous administrations, as well as the
court that oversees national security cases, agreed with President
Bush's position that a president legally may authorize searches
without warrants in pursuit of foreign intelligence. 'The Department
of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president
has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for
foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has
done, delegate this authority to the attorney general,' Clinton Deputy
Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence." So she admitted
what Clinton has done, what previous presidents have done, and that
there was this inherent authority.

"Such warrantless searches have been at the center of a political
fight in Washington after the New York Times reported Friday that the
Bush administration had a program to intercept communications between
al Qaeda suspects and persons in this country... A Washington Post
report at the time said the new FISA law perpetrates the government,
primarily NSA, to continue electronic spying without a court order if
it's directed solely at the premise or communications of official
powers such as governments," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So
yesterday the mainstream press has been made aware of something that
the rest of the country has known for three or four days, or 11 years,
and still it has not made it beyond CNN yesterday afternoon. The New
York Times is still on the story, still on the same story they were on
last Friday.

RUSH: The Clinton administration kicked down the door of Aldrich Ames,
the door to his house, and conducted a warrantless search of a US
citizen. I have not read anything that the Bush administration ever
did this or has done this, have you? We haven't heard one report of
this kind of thing happening during the Bush administration. So did
Barbara Boxer, when she learned that Clinton did this, did she ask
four legal scholars to look into whether Clinton should be impeached?
Did her legal advisor, John Dean, have anything to say about it? The
thing is we don't oppose this. We are consistent. We conservatives,
and we patriots, are consistent. We don't oppose this for national
security purposes. The case of Aldrich Ames, he was a spy. He was
selling secrets to the enemy. Now, folks, there's a reason. I could
have said "the Russkies." I could have said "the Russians." I could
have said "the commie pinkos." But I said the word "enemy" because
that word irritates liberals as much as the word "censorship."

They hate the word "enemy," and do you know why? Because they don't
think we have any. They don't like Al-Qaeda being call "the enemy."
Al-Qaeda is not. Bush is the enemy, in their world, but there is no
real enemy. We talk about the enemy. They think we're exaggerating.
We're extremists. We're over the top. We're off our rockers. So I love
just ramming it right down their geeky little throats. But that's
exactly what he was doing: Ames was selling secrets to the enemy, and,
yes, the Soviets were our enemy. Make no mistake about it. They seem
to think -- the left seems to think -- that Democrat presidents are
free to use these warrantless searches, intern American citizens like
FDR did, use the IRS like Clinton did, and all the rest. We believe in
the rule of law, as does President Bush. We oppose internment. We
oppose misuse of the IRS. The president does have the power to protect
the nation during war. He does have the power. He has the power to
intercept communications from the enemy to sympathizers in the United
States.

I think there's no doubt Bush wants to prevent another 9/11 where the
hijackers are receiving communications in Florida and other parts of
the US from Al-Qaeda bigs overseas. It's the sole motivation for this.
But to listen to the left you would think all he wants to do is spy on
them. Now, what are you people doing out there on the left that you're
afraid somebody's going to discover? This kind of inordinate fear --
and, look, I'm a civil libertarian. Don't misunderstand here. But we
are at war, and we've got an enemy who has used these kinds of
communications to plot 9/11. But you people on the left don't want any
ability to find out who's doing or participating in these
communications. You're not consistent. You're all for civil liberties
except when it comes to protecting the country. You want to impeach
the president who's doing this. You are so fearful that some private
thing that you are engaged in is going to be discovered, it's got me
wondering, what are you doing? What are you doing that you don't want
us to know about? Because I'll guarantee you, it's nothing we don't
already know about. We know what you're doing. We know who you are. We
know what kind of perverts you are, we know what kind of weakling
weenie spined little people you are. We know what kind of things you
do out there. You can't keep any secrets.

RUSH: You know, folks, there's a good way to put all of this in
perspective for you. I'm going to have to really impose some
discipline on myself here because I am on the verge. These liberals,
these people, they are all upset about Bush trying to protect the
country, and trying to impeach him for that. These are the same
liberals, ladies and gentlemen, that went after Robert Bork's video
rentals. Does anybody remember that? They went after Bork's video
rentals. They went through Clarence Thomas's trash can. Remember that?
They can spy all they want. They can violate the law when they spy.
But, boy, when you are a Republican and you're trying to protect the
country, we're going to nail you and we are going to impeach you!
There's no question in any reasonable person's mind the president
wants to protect the country, prevent another 9/11.

The hijackers were receiving instructions while in Florida from
overseas. He wants to be able to stop it. The FISA process is too
cumbersome, too slow to do it. So he uses his legitimate
constitutional power to do it; and this is why saying that the
president authorized spying on US citizens, or authorized domestic
spying is just a contemptible lie, and we know that it is. These
liberals, they want to be able to go through your trash can. They want
to be able to go through your pharmacy records. They to be able to go
through your medical records. They want to be able to go through your
video store rentals. They want to be able to go to the library and
find out what kind of porn you might be reading; but they are not
going to allow us to do legitimate searches when it comes to the
defense of the country -- and look at Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer
who's all upset, voted against the Patriot Act.

"We can't have this!"

He's got a couple of clowns on his staff that went and got the Social
Security number or credit reports from Michael Steele, lieutenant
governor of Maryland. He's a black guy, wants to be a senator from
Maryland. They went and got his credit report and they plastered it
all over the place. There has still has been no apology. Talk about
spying? Talk about dirty tricks? They didn't ask FISA, didn't get a
warrant to get any of his private credit information on Lieutenant
Governor Michael Steele of Maryland. If we think about this, we can
come up with probably a whole two hours' worth of examples. The point
is this: We know what the libs and the media and the Democrats are up
to, and it's no good. It's just that simple. My mom used to say, "Son,
that person is up to no good."

You know, you don't need to make it complicated, don't need to get all
flowery with the language. We know what the libs and the media and the
Democrats are up to, and it's no good. We see them systematically
trying to weaken this nation, and if Iraq goes to hell in the process
so much the better. They're already invested in defeat in Iraq. It
doesn't affect them, they don't think, as they go on their vacations
in Vail and Aspen and Martha's Vineyard and the like. It's not going
to bother them at all. "So what if we're hit again? So what if it's
another 3,000 people?" Their power means more than any of this to
them, and I'm dead serious when I say it -- and this is not fatigue
and a lack of sleep speaking. They don't care if we get hit again.
"Another 3,000 people? So what?" As long as it doesn't happen every
day and they don't have to do something to stop it, it isn't any big
deal.