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From Powerslime - But it's a funny kind of politics, isn't it? The point seems to be to drive down President Bush's approval ratings. To some degree the Dems' slander has succeeded in doing that, although it's hard to measure because so many of the polls are meaningless, like the new CBS poll I commented on last night. But how does this strategy, even if it works, make sense? Bush doesn't have to run again. The Dems should be focused on next year's Senate and House elections. But it's hard to believe the "pre-war intelligence" theme will be effective next November. For one thing, conditions in Iraq are likely to be better by then, with troops coming home. More important, while the war was rightfully a pre-eminent issue in last year's Presidential race, it is at most a sideshow in any individual Senator's or Representative's race. None of the Republicans running next year bear any particular responsibility for the war, and there is unlikely to be much difference of opinion as to how the conflict should be handled going forward. If Democratic House and Senate candidates think they can win by running, McGovernlike, on an immediate withdrawal platform, they're badly misreading the American people. So I can't see how the Dems' strategy makes sense in the context of next year's elections. If that's true, why are they focused so single-mindedly on the Iraqi intelligence red herring? I think perhaps the Democrats in the Senate are trying to distract their activist base from the reality of their own impotence. Vital events are, of course, transpiring in the Senate right now, including ANWR drilling--approved today--and, most notably, President Bush's Supreme Court nominations. Nothing is more important to the Democratic base than preserving the liberal orientation of the Supreme Court. But the President has now dealt two hammer blows to liberal control of the Court--the only branch of the federal government still under liberal control--in the form of the Roberts and Alito nominations. http://www.powerlineblog.com/From Limpballs - RUSH: The funniest thing about this yesterday -- and there are a lot of funny things, it's hard to pick -- the funniest thing is the Democrat kook internet reaction. They thought this was going to result in Bush getting impeached. They actually thought that the Democrats, Dingy Harry invoking Rule 21 and shutting down the Senate, going into closed session, was finally what they've been asking for all along. So much is clear; so much is obvious. They were so let down over the lack of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation leading to a trial on the war with Iraq and the prewar intelligence. I'm telling you people, they were looking to launch impeachment hearings. What this was all about, they were going to use an indictment of Rove and whoever else came along, Libby is not enough, to launch impeachment hearings. The thing that is amazing about this -- and we're going to go back and chronicle this today. Do you feel like Groundhog Day today, Mr. Snerdley? I feel like it's Groundhog Day. This is the 2004 campaign being rerun: Prewar intel! Bush lied! They lost the 2004 campaign. They're rerunning it. They keep going back and doing the same things over and over and over again. We have audio sound bites from Dingy Harry and a number of people yesterday, but the first thing I did, first thing I'm sitting here -- and I couldn't go home very early yesterday because I still don't have Internet at home, still don't have power at home -- so I was working diligently here at the EIB Southern Command, and when this thing first happened, the first thing I did, I went to my document archives and I found the Rockefeller memo. We told you about this Rockefeller memo back in, I think, earlier in the summer. That's how long the Democrats have been dreaming of this. Actually, the Rockefeller memo goes back to November of 2003. So I printed the Rockefeller memo out. The Rockefeller memo pretty much dictates the action that took place yesterday. Now, there are a lot of people saying, "Well, there are a lot of different reasons for this, Rush. Weeeell, you know, they just wanted to seize the news cycle away from Bush." Some analysts are saying there were four senators that decided among themselves without even talking to other senators or the staff to go invoke Rule 21 because they were so let down. They were so dispirited over the fact that Bush had regained the news cycle back with the bird flu press conference; the Alito nomination, and the base being revved up and ready to go over both of those, plus the fact that Rove wasn't indicted, and so they panicked. They literally panicked! Now, the great thing that's happening here, folks: they are showing us who they are. Once again this is key. We want this fight; we want this debate. The Democrats, the liberals, have gotten away with for far too long masquerading as moderates or progressives or what have you. We need them to display for the American people precisely who they are. What's happened to them is they are frustrated. I'm going to give you the psychological analysis. Here's where they are -- and I've told you this countless times -- I'm going to repeat it again because it bears repeating. The Democrats ran this country for 40 years. They had the House of Representatives for 40 uninterrupted years. For many of those same 40 years they controlled the Senate. The government and its control is their birthright. It is their entitlement. It is theirs. They own it. Nobody else can have any power in it. Whenever that happens, to them it's an aberration. Well, they lost that power. They lost that government -- their government! They think it's theirs personally. They lost it in '94. They haven't gotten it back. They haven't gotten close to getting it back, and they don't understand it, since it is a birthright, since it is an entitlement, since it is theirs -- and as I have told you, when this happens, they construct all kinds of wacko theories to explain it. They do not look at themselves. They do not look inwardly and say, "What are we doing wrong, maybe? Is there something we're doing wrong?" What they instead do is look at the voters and see stupidity, or they look at the voters and they see a bunch of people who are being persuaded by slick marketing and packaging. They then glom onto conspiracies to explain this. The election in 2000 was stolen from them. "Bush and the Supreme Court stole it," and they end up creating this alternative reality and living in it. It is not just rhetoric anymore. This is psychological now. It's not just rhetoric. They literally believe the election was stolen in 2000; they literally believe that voting machines in Ohio were tampered with and that Kerry was denied his birthright in 2004. So they had two elections stolen from them. They then believe -- despite the fact that a majority of Democrats voted for the war, after receiving all the prewar intel that we have all been treated to since 1998 and 1999, they have created this alternative reality where they got lied to. They didn't vote for it. Nobody saw it. "It didn't exist! Bush lied! Bush made it up," and they can't let go of it, just like they couldn't let go of the story about Bush and the National Guard. So they have immersed themselves in this false reality, and it has become their world. They are living in and living a lie, a series of them, day in and day out. The problem with doing so is reality has a tendency to rear its head. They've created this fantasy world where none of the problems they have are of their own making, and yet reality sometimes rears its head and they can't bear to deal with that. When the reality that conflicts with their alternative reality shows it, such as the lack of any investigation by Fitzgerald into the reasons we went to war. No indictment of Rove; no trial on the lying. They can't deal with it. They have to go right back to their alternative realities so they invoke Rule 21 yesterday demanding an independent investigation. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. Has the 9/11 Commission not already investigated this? Didn't the 9/11 Commission already conclude that there was no attempt to lie and make things up about the prewar intel? Another commission I know for sure has found the same thing -- and I've got this all here in the stack.
We went back last week. I'm going to do it again partially on the program today, chronicling all the New York Times and Washington Post stories about all the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had, and all the warnings that the news media was giving us that we had to do something about it (story). We got Bill Clinton's statements from 1998 and 1999, Democrats that went along with him. The only way you can follow this, the only way any of this can make any sense to you as you watch this, is to realize this. You are watching a literal implosion. They are resisting, even though the evidence abounds that they have lost. Roberts got close; Alito is the next little nail in their coffin. The fact that Fitzgerald decided not to investigate the prewar intelligence as part of his independent counsel work, all of this slowly and surely pops up now and then is reinforcing the idea that they have lost. This is not a dream, it's not an aberration, that they really have lost the government, they do continue to lose elections; there's no end in sight to this. They do not offer any substance whatsoever. They don't dare talk about substance. They are still stuck in the same old playbook, criminalize their opponents, criminalize their opponents' policy, or try to impugn and destroy the character and reputations of their opponents. But they dare not discuss anything of substance. So they're sitting there, not knowing what to do. So if you've created this alternative reality -- and I'll tell you something else that's going on about this.
The purpose of this invocation of Rule 21 yesterday and whatever they do today, tomorrow, and in the coming days and weeks, is designed to provide an opportunity for those Democrats in the Senate that voted for the resolution in Iraq to do a flip-flop and to say, "I retract my vote so they can please the liberal Democrat kook base," because that's the one stumbling block that they have. The liberal Democrat kook base is out there demanding Cindy Sheehan for something, president or senator, was in The Village Voice yesterday. They are not happy with Hillary. By the way, did you see this news story that Camilla Parker Bowles travels around with 50 dresses? She brought 50 dresses for this week in America, and I say, "More power to her." I mean, Hillary travels with two pantsuits. The duchess here travels with 50 dresses. My kind of babe. Point is, they're trying to set up circumstances where the likes of John Kerry and all the other Democrats that voted with Bush on a resolution they demanded in the summer of 2002 to go to war with Iraq to allow them a chance to flip-flop because they are trying to cement it in people's heads as it is cemented in theirs, that Bush lied, and their votes were the result of trickery and deceit. I am just telling you that any group of people this large that is so studiously and assiduously avoiding reality and creating a fantasy world and an alternative reality in which to live is doomed, and every action they take cements their doom as imminent and sooner rather than later. I got a quick time-out. We'll come back; we'll start with the audio sound bites. We got your phone calls on this, and there's other stuff in the news today, too. So we're going to try to jam as much in as we can.
Let's go back to the invocation of Rule 21 by Dingy Harry, and let's review some of the theories that are out there. Some of the theories that are out there; the Democrats did this to steal the news cycle back from Bush. By the way, all these are interrelated and I think they all have their merit, and there may not be one specific reason. But if there is anything that is at the top of the list here that has tentacles connecting to all the other reasons, it is the fact that they are so dispirited and disjointed and depressed and let down. I cannot emphasize enough, folks, just how much they have been living a lie -- a lie that they have constructed, an alternative reality -- and they believe the lie. They are so immersed in it that that alternative reality is their truth. They cannot deal with it when "the truth," when actual reality hits them upside the face, as did the lack of any action by Patrick Fitzgerald last week with his investigation looking into the reasons we went to war. He made it perfectly plain in his press conference that anything about the war, nothing about the war is in his indictment, absolutely nothing about prewar intelligence, whether the war is good or bad, whether we should have or shouldn't have, whether we're winning or not, none of this -- and they really thought that this was what it was all about, because they've thrown in with a guy who himself cannot tell the truth. As Max Boot says in the LA Times today: "Joe Wilson tells more whoppers than Burger King makes," and they thrown in with his people! They throw in with the likes of Cindy Sheehan; now Joe Wilson, and before that Bill Burkett.
They crack up when reality hits them, and so whether it was the fact that they lost the news cycle, whether it was the fact that Bush regained the high ground and the momentum in ramming his agenda through, regardless, it's all related to the fact that they are living a lie and can't deal with the truth when it hits them upside the head. Now, as to the specifics, they didn't just decide yesterday to invoke Rule 21. They didn't just decide yesterday in a pique. I think they may have pulled the trigger on it yesterday which was a mistake and an error in timing, sort of a spontaneous notion, but this has actually been in the works since November of 2003. Remember the Rockefeller memo? I mentioned this to you a number of times since this past summer. I have the full text of the memo from "the Office of Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), on setting a strategy for pursuing an independent investigation of prewar White House intelligence dealings on Iraq," and again this goes back to November of 2003. It says this: "We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows: 1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard. For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman (Sen. Pat Roberts) has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.
"The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and consigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. (We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.) 2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it... 3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once. The best time to do so will probably be next year, either: A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public," and...
"Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence. In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information. SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war."
This, I'm reading from, is a leaked memo. This was not intended to be released. It was not intended for people to see it. November 6th, 2003. Yesterday was the day they pulled the trigger, and as the Rockefeller memo says, "We can only do this one time. We can't keep going back to the well," and yet they keep going back to the well, and there's no water in the well.
Folks, I have lived for this day. I have lived for the day that I would witness almost on a daily basis the disintegration of the American left, the disintegration of the Democratic Party, the evidence that I have believe for the longest time that they are not a dominant force, that they are not well-oiled and smarter than the rest of the room and continually outsmarting everybody. They are sick. They are psychologically sick, and it goes back to the fact that they firmly believe that something that is their birthright, that is their entitlement -- that is the control and power of government -- has been taken from them, and yet Liz Sidoti. Two different versions of her story ran in the Associated Press. The first story cleared at 3:43 yesterday afternoon, shortly after Rule 21 was invoked, and here's her lead: "Democrats force the Republican controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, questioning intelligence that President Bush used in the run-up to the war in Iraq, accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue. Reid's move shone a spotlight on a continuing controversy over intelligence that President Bush cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Despite prewar claims, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Some Democrats have accused the administration of manipulating the information that was in their possession." Folks, it's almost like dealing with children here today. The evidence that we have to just nuke these people sky high and to obliterate them is overwhelming. Some of it I touched on last week.
But then Dingy Harry said, "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq, and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions." The Libby indictment is about no such thing! The Libby indictment is not even close to that. The special prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald, purposely said so. The most powerful paragraph in his statement and his press conference has nothing to do with the war (paraphrased): "If you're for it or against it, if you love it or hate it, if you think it's anything about the war in Iraq in this indictment, I urge you to think again. There's not," and yet Dingy Harry goes to the floor of the Senate and maintains it's what it's about. They can't get out of their false universe. They can't get out of it. This really is a case for psychiatrists to examine. Folks, this is more than just trying to dominate a news cycle; this is more than just trying to force their views on the American people so the American people will accept it. It's more than that. When the evidence is so clearly not what they claim it is. It's like looking at the sky and everybody says, "It's blue," and they say, "No, that sky is green," because they want it to be green, and everybody says, "It's blue." The indictment's not about war. This indictment, this Libby indictment provides a window into what is really happening here? It does no such thing. Some of you might say, "Rush, you're overdoing this. This is just a bunch of typical liberal lies."
Well, yeah, it's a bunch of typical liberal lies, but, folks, it's more. It's pathological. They are just beside themselves. They thought that impeachment proceedings would be underway. Last week they were already talking about how they won the House and Senate back in '06 and the '08 presidential race was theirs; it was just a mere formality. Just a week ago! Now today it's all gone. It's all gone and everything they have thought they were in this position with Bill Burkett and the National Guard and they thought the 9/11 Commission gave them these odds, and they thought the Jersey Girls were going to put them over the top, then Richard Clarke was going to put them over the top; then they thought that Cindy Sheehan was going to put them over the top, then they've thrown in with Joe Wilson, and none of what they believe has ever been true. They haven't been close to winning in '06. They are not close to winning the White House back in '08. They're getting farther away from this. Their odds of winning continue to shrink, and in fact Liz Sidoti, Associated Press, writing about 12 hours later, at 3:34 this morning: "Unable to win their way with votes, outnumbered Democrats use the rarely-invoked Senate rule to force a secret session as a way to dramatize their assertions the Bush administration misused intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq." Now, that's quite a different lead than the lead that ran less than an hour after Dingy Harry invoked Rule 21.
Remember, the first lead: "Democrats forced Republicans into an unusual closed session today, questioning intelligence that President Bush used in the run-up," blah, blah, "and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue." But 12 hours later: "Unable to win their way with votes..." Folks, that sums it up in toto. It sums it up. "Unable to win their way with votes..." They can't win their way with votes in Florida. They can't win their way with votes nationally. They can't win in '02. They didn't win in '04. They lost in 2000. They're not going to win in '06. They can't win votes in the Senate. They can't stop Alito, and they know it. They couldn't stop Roberts and they know it and they're not going to be able to stop the next nominee and they know it, but they don't want to admit it so they continue to live in their false reality -- and how about this? They go drag out Jimmy Carter! Somebody put him out of his misery; keep him off television. They bring him out on The Today Show today, and he says that the whole war and the prewar intelligence was a lie and it was made up, and he's all for invoking Rule 21. Now, Jimmy Carter, they dragged him out at the Democrat Convention in Boston. Jimmy Carter, that's their last guy? Where's Bill Clinton? Oh, I'm sorry. He's at Rosa Parks' funeral. Priorities are priorities. But you can't tell me that bringing Jimmy Carter out on television or at your convention is a sign of strength. You just can't. There's nothing to recommend his opinion on anything. He was one of the worst presidents in modern times. Here's a guy, what did he try? He tried to "attack" Iran with six helicopters that got sand bugged trying to get our hostages out of there, attacks Iran with six helicopters, and this guy is telling us about prewar intelligence and how faulty and phony it was, which continues to be the nub of this.
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