Rush - HRC: Our Best Friend in Congress

I think I have found, ladies and gentlemen, the conservatives' best friend in Congress, and that would be Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary Rodham Clinton could very well turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to conservatives and Republicans in Congress, could be their best friend. Now, I realize this is stunning many of you. I realize many of you want to know if I need the vapors. I realize that many of you are wondering am I just totally down in the dumps over the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat on Sunday night. No, folks. I've looked long and hard at this. The story is everywhere. "Hillary Clinton Seeking Shared Ground Over Abortions." I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers the New York Times story that recounts this. Really, I'm going to be honest: I'm stunned. some of you people are genuinely perplexed and think I'm losing it. I've been here -- we're well into our 16th year now. We've almost got 16 -- let's see, August, September, October, November, December – 16-and-a-half years here, almost (interruption). Well, but I never have lost it. Somebody just said, "Even if you lose it you always rally," but I've never lost it, and yet everybody seems to be waiting for that moment in time where I blow it or go a little bit too far astray or what have you. So a lot of people are probably shocked that I think Mrs. Clinton could end up being the conservatives' best friend in Congress, and I guess this is what makes me me. I'm the only one who's looking at it this way.

Yesterday in Albany Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the new best friend of conservatives in Congress, said that the opposing sides in the divisive debate over abortion should find common ground to prevent unwanted pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions, which she called a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. In a speech to about a thousand abortion rights supporters, Mrs. Clinton firmly stated her support for the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade ruling, but after she did that she quickly shifted gears and she offered warm words to opponents of legalized abortion, and praising the influence of religious and moral values on delaying teenaged girls from becoming sexually active. I said whoa, ho-ho-ho, hubba hubba. I mean, this is right out of the Bill Clinton, Dick Morris triangulation playbook, folks. She is simply repeating. Bill Clinton's biggest claim to fame is co-opting the Republican agenda, when you get right down to it. The things that he gets the biggest amount of credit for came from the '94 Republican Congress and its agenda: Welfare reform, balancing the budget, getting rid of the deficit and so forth, all Republican ideas. He got credit for doing it, and that's his big claim to fame.

He did it by virtue of triangulation, setting himself above the meager members of both political factions, and here Mrs. Clinton is pulling a Bill on abortion, reinventing herself as a centrist, is a compromiser. But the fact remains that she's 95% Americans for Democratic Action liberal rating. She supports partial-birth abortion. The key here is for people not to be fooled by this, and I think there are two reasons why I think that she is the best friend the conservatives in Congress have, because with Mrs. Clinton moving or apparently moving to the center -- here's the best way to explain this. Let me lead you through this. We Republicans have the White House; we have the Senate; we have the House of Representatives. But yet let's just assume for a moment we face the fork in the road. Which way do we go? Do we go the Republican way or do we go the liberal way? What would we do? We have the White House; we have the Senate; we have the House. Well, all of a sudden here comes the fork in the road on an issue. What do we do? As you know, there are many Republicans who want to go the liberal way. There are many Republicans who just can't deal with success.

There are many Republicans, "Ain't no way we're gonna do Social Security!" Many Republicans, "What do you mean, freedom around the world? Ain't no way we're going to support that." A lot of Republicans (names I could mention, McCain, Hagel), you take your pick of them. You know who I'm talking about -- Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe -- when the fork in the road comes they always want to go the liberal way even though we run the show. (interruption) Who? Chafee? Well, yeah. So we've got a clear illustration here. We run the show and yet we've got some people on our side who just can't stand success so any time a liberal option comes up, moderate option, bam! They're on that road rather than on the Republican road, right? Okay. So the question is thus spoken: Do we stand for our core beliefs as Republicans, or do we try to distance ourselves as individuals? Do we try to stand out? Do we take issue with the president? Do we try to buy votes? Do we try to fake sincerity and do focus group phrases? In other words, do we be who we are, or do we do like the Democrats do and try to fool people at that fork in the road? Hillary is running. There's no question about it. She's running early; she's running hard -- and what's she doing? She's reaching out for the pro-life crowd. That's what she did yesterday. Make no mistake about it. She's reaching out to the Reagan Democrats who want to vote Democrat if the Democrats can just get their act together when it comes to values and the like.

She's running so hard, folks, she is to the right of the president on illegal immigration. She is saying things about illegal immigration that Republicans want their own president to say. She seems to be a Lieberman hawk on Iraq. I mean, I think that's so. With Hillary you never know. In the meantime, you've got John Kerry in a little peeing match with Barbara Boxer for TV time this week. Kerry, you know, thinking that he's got a shot at it again in 2008. But let's say Kerry runs again in '08. That's not going to keep our guys on our side, nor would John Edwards running in '08 keeping our guys on our side or Evan Bayh or Howard Dean or whoever, but Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton running hard, Hillary Clinton taking conservative issues, or espousing conservative issues is the best thing that could happen to keep Republicans on our side and keep them from taking a liberal fork in the road. If you want to keep conservatives conservative, weak-kneed conservatives have this tendency to go out and try to appeal to the media in Washington, and try to up their credentials by being mavericks or renegades. You want to keep them on the right, have Hillary Clinton move right, because none of these people is going to want to appear to be to the left of Hillary Clinton. So how important is Hillary to conservatives? Remember, it was Hillary who helped us win Congress with her socialistic health care plan. Now she can help us keep the Congress, because the more Hillary Clinton tries to recast herself to the right, the more our pandering conservative Republican politicians have to stay on the right. That's why Hillary Clinton is perhaps our best friend in Congress these days.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's another side as well, and it's a distinct possibility to this Hillary Clinton story. In addition, let me read you some of the quotes here from the New York Times, some of the stories. "Mrs. Clinton's remarks were generally well received though the audience was silent during most of her overtures to anti-abortion groups. Afterward, leaders of those groups were skeptical given Mrs. Clinton's outspoken support for abortion over the years. Mrs. Clinton widely seen as a possible candidate," blah, blah, blah, blah, "appeared to be reaching out beyond traditional core Democrats who support abortion." You know, it says "abortion rights" here, but let's be honest: That's splitting hairs. They support abortion. Can we just be honest about this? That's what we are here, folks. That's why I am America's Anchorman and why the New York Times isn't. "Mrs. Clinton appeared to be reaching out beyond the traditional core Democrats who support abortion. She did so not by changing her political stands but by underscoring her views in preventing unplanned pregnancies, promoting adoption, recognizing the influence of religion and abstinence and championing what she has long called teenage celibacy." Now, if you're thinking right now, you're probably in tune with me. Let me give you a hint: Think Barbara Boxer at the Condoleezza Rice hearings, and why Barbara Boxer is doing what she's doing -- by the way, which was confirmed yesterday on CNN.

Well, not confirmed. I confirmed it. CNN came late to the day, but both Judy Woodruff and Bill Schneider now agree that that's what Barbara Boxer is doing. So hint time: Barbara Boxer is appealing to the Democrat base. The Democrat base is what? A bunch of absolute Looney Toon left-wing kooks who believe conspiracy theories more and more and more, and they are loaded for bear, and they are large numbers, and they are growing, and they are not happy whatsoever with any aspect of a chairman of the Democratic National Committee like Tim Roemer who wants to moderate on abortion himself, or maybe participate in some way with Social Security reform. They want Dean. They want red meat. They want blood and guts -- and, meanwhile, here's Hillary reaching out to red state pro-life people? You see what's being set up here? This is a lot going on here, folks, because the Democratic Party, I think, is headed toward an implosion. I think it's in a self-defeat mode, and I think the Hillary speech yesterday, if this kind of thing keeps up, is only going to exacerbate it, and cause that implosion to occur even sooner. When she starts reaching over across the aisle, even if it is just rhetorically, even if it's just semantically, to reach out to red state value-based voters while the kooks in the Democratic Party are ascending, you've got two growing factions at war in the Democratic Party who are fighting for control of the Democratic Party.

You've got the Hillary wing and you've got the base and the Barbara Boxers of the world appealing to the base no doubt on assignment from somewhere. I don't know what Democrats got together and told or anointed Barbara Boxer as the liaison to the Democrat base, but somebody did. In the meantime, you've got Hillary out there as far away figuratively from the Rice hearings that she can get reaching out to pro-lifers in Albany, New York? Something's got to give here, folks, at some point. "Leading anti-abortion campaigners in both New York and nationwide pounced on Mrs. Clinton as a suspect spokeswoman for compromise and common ground. 'I think she's trying to adopt a values-oriented language, but it lacks substance, at least if you compare it to her record,' said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council in Washington. 'If you look at Senator Clinton's voting record on this issue it's like Planned Parenthood's condoms. It's defective.' Mrs. Clinton's remarks drew some gasps and head-shaking from those gathered in Albany when she offered a string of statistics and data that her aides said were meant to show that preventing unwanted pregnancies could be a unifying issue for supporters and opponents of abortion rights." So she's out there. She's essentially saying what I've been saying all these years, everybody: "Change people's hearts," and now she's out there saying, "We gotta stop all these unwanted pregnancies."

She's talking about abstinence and how it works, and parental notification. Well, let's see if she gets close to that. "Several audience members inhaled sharply," (Gasp!). "For instance," (Gasp!) "when Mrs. Clinton said that 7% of American women who do not use contraception make up 53% of all unintended pregnancies." (Gasping.) "She also cited research estimating that 15,000 abortions a year are by women who have been sexually assaulted." (Gasping.) "One of several reasons she said that morning-after emergency contraception should be made available over-the-counter." She also says that abortion rates went down because her husband was president. Did you hear that? She made that a big selling point in this speech, just like everything good happened in the 90s happened because her husband happened to be president. The economy was really great because her husband was president. It's the same as when they take credit for reducing the deficit. The deficit reduction in this country was the work of every hard working American, including all those businessmen that Hillary hates who kept the economy robust and productive, creating jobs, growth, and revenue despite their tax increases.

The Clintons came along with punitive economic policies, and were it not for the hard work of the American people, their punitive economic policies would have taken a toll. They ended up doing so anyway at the end of the Clintons' second term. Hillary's answer for all of this, of course: More money for pregnancy prevention. Something new about that? Anybody think that's a grand new idea? It isn't. Any time a Democrat asks for more money on anything, it's not a new idea but the New York Times goes gaga over this. Behavior is what has to change, not increased government spending. It's what the liberals never understand and why they constantly disparage morals-based and values-based teachings and the people in the red states, because it's the behavior the liberals don't like. It's the behavior liberals don't want to address. It's behavior that liberals do not want anybody judging them on in terms of their own behavior or life so they don't want behavior to be a factor in any problem we have at all, be it AIDS, be it abortion, unwanted pregnancy. No, it's the condom's fault! No, it's education's fault. It's whoever's fault, but it's always to be fixed by government and money, but we can never change anything by changing people's behavior, because the liberals don't want their own behavior changed.

In the midst of all this, here comes Mrs. Clinton reaching out to the red states while at the same time Barbara Boxer is leading the kook base and trying to strengthen it by giving it a voice during the Condoleezza Rice hearings, and there will be other Democrats in the Senate, and in the House, who I'm sure will be anointed to give voice to the concerns and issues of this kook fringe base that is becoming more and more the majority of the Democrat Party, while on the other side of this, Hillary Clinton is basically thumbing her nose at them, ignoring them, not speaking their language, not saying what they want said, they are not hearing her say what they want said, and she has been anointed the front-runner of the party, and what is she doing? She's out appealing to pro-lifers. This is not going to make 'em happy. Go read some Democrat websites if you don't believe me and see what the kooks are saying about all this and you'll find, my friends, the Democratic Party is not very happy place to be these days -- and that's fine with me, don't misunderstand.

RUSH: Lynette in Fort Collins, Colorado. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: I just wanted to comment on the Hillary thing. I would be surprised that the squishy, mushy Republicans would believe anything that would come out of her mouth. I think the Democrats probably already know that she's talking out of both sides of her mouth just for votes. I mean, they might be mad that she's playing both sides, but --

RUSH: They can't take the chance. They can't take the chance with her. See, Hillary is a different figure. The Republicans can't take a chance. If they want to take a chance, if they want to play this the wrong way, they're welcome to do it, but if they want to sit there and say, "Oh, she doesn't mean this. She's just saying this," and if they're going to assume that Hillary's audience is not going to believe her, then let 'em. Let 'em try. She's got Bill Clinton sitting behind her -- in front of her, wherever -- and these people have perfected this triangulation theory. On the Democrat side, yeah, there may be a contingent of Democrats: "Ah, she's only saying what she has to say. We don't care what she says as long as we beat the Republicans because we hate the Republicans," but believe me, folks, there's something else happening in the Democratic party. You know, we hear about this new media all over the place. Every time we hear new media, we think of me and all the other talk shows and the bloggers and this sort of stuff, but there's a new media on the Democrat side, too. It's called MoveOn.org. It's called George Soros. It's called Americans Coming Together, all these wacko blogs -- and I'm telling you what. They are as much at odds with the Democratic Party in many ways as other people are, and there's a battle for control of this party, and Mrs. Clinton represents one wing of it, and she's just told us which direction she's going to go.

For the moment, I don't care whether... I don't believe her anyway. That's not the point here. To get into a discussion of whether or not Hillary is being honest is a waste of time. The discussion needs to focus on what the effect of this is. This is either going to blow up the Democratic Party or it's going to be the long-awaited sponge that sops up all the refuse and sort of cleans it out. Only time will tell. On the other end of this, the Republicans had better pay close attention to this, because we ought not make the mistake that was made in 1994, and I've gone through this once or twice before. In '94 we assumed mistakenly, "Well, that's it. Country has finally agreed with us," and we just started going, you know, full speed down the trail without a continuing education process. Now, I don't think that mistake is going to be made this time, but the Republicans had better realize that there is a shift in party ID. There are more people now calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, and the number of people calling themselves independents is at an all-time high, and among some of those independents are Democrats who would rather be Democrats, but they don't have the guts to admit it because how far kooky left the party has gone, and a lot of them are in the south and a lot of them are the old Reagan Democrats who were Reagan Democrats on the basis of not just fiscal but cultural, social issues as well.

The Democratic Party has abandoned a lot of their own members in that regard. If Mrs. Clinton can convince just some of those people that she represents a moderating more centrist Democratic Party that's not going to be out there that defines itself by wanting every abortion possible in this country to take place, she's going to be heard by some of these people. This is why I think that whether they like it or not, she ends up being some of the Republicans in Congress best friend because she's going to keep 'em on the right, and that's where we need them to be because that's where we win elections. We don't win elections with renegades and mavericks going off the plantation and heading down the liberal road when they face the fork in the road, just to get media approval or what have you. So the question whether or not certain groups believe what Hillary is saying, even I mean some pro-choicers are going to get mad at her, but they're going to always vote Democrat no matter what. She knows full well as do sensible Democrats at what the Democratic Party faces. There's two things. One is they've gotta keep their base, and the second thing they've gotta go get some of these people that have abandoned them -- and I think that's where she's focused right now, and part of it is triangulation, trying to make herself look above the fray which is what triangulation is really all about, above the partisan divide.

She'll do the right thing on Iraq in terms of her vote and what she says. She's going to do the right thing on Condoleezza Rice. She's going to do all these right things, but she'll say just enough to appease the base, the kooks, like she did when they counted the electoral votes in Ohio, but this move yesterday of going out and trying to appeal to pro-lifers, don't make the mistake of saying, ah, nobody is going to believe her on either side and so forth. By the way, I'm not holding her up as undefeatable. Don't misunderstand. I'm just saying that of all the names that have surfaced in the Democratic Party as people interested in the '08 nomination you have to take her more seriously than any of the others at this stage. Now, I know, I'm on the record as saying she won't be the nominee. Wild guess. I'll make a more informed educated pick as the years unfold. It's nothing to do with her. I'm just saying early picks never pan out. When you start predicting things four years down the road, what everybody thought, conventional wisdom is always wrong anyway -- and the conventional wisdom now is that not only is Hillary the nominee, she's the president in '08, and you know me: I always buck conventional wisdom just for the sake of it. It's the healthier and more intelligent thing to do.

Now, one of the things I always told you people about abortion, I mean, going back to the midst and the teeth of the controversy, back to the late 80s on into the early and mid-90es, during the days of the famous caller abortions -- may they rest in peace -- in the early days of this program. I told you abortion was never a 70-30 issue like the left wanted you to believe it was. Pro-abortion has never been that. It was a media myth. At best it was a 50-50 issue. Now, some people might say that Mrs. Clinton's crossing the aisle as it were yesterday in Albany to reach out to pro-lifers is proof positive that the pro-choice position as an identity position is not enough to win elections. In fact, it may be a liability that if you're known primarily as the anti-life party, the pro-abortion party, that you'll lose. It could well be that Mrs. Clinton thinks that. Even so, the fact that she's reaching across the aisle to sound... You can do two things with that if you're a Democrat. You can come out and say that you -- however you wish to say it -- you can say that you're not an ardent pro-choicer and that's not what defines you. It's a second step to reach across the aisle, then, and try to appeal to pro-lifers because when you do that, then you start irritating your own base. Now, we all know that the Democrats all know that Hillary is as left as anybody in the Democratic Party is.

She's just smarter about it. She doesn't articulate it. Where the Democratic Party is having its problems is, that more and more of the Democrats, including the kooks, are openly honest about what they think and what they believe and who they want to win elections and so forth. They won't still call themselves liberals. They want to call themselves progressives, but as their frustration mounts, so has their willingness to be open about who they are and it's not a pleasing sight. Now, Mrs. Clinton is not that desperate. She's not gotten to the point of going out and saying things and doing things to make it explicitly clear to a casual observer that she's a left-wing kook as well, but she is. So this reaching across the aisle here is designed to disguise her ultra-liberalism. Make no mistake about it: She's far more left than Bill was, and Bill was pretty liberal, too. But she's far to the left of Bill. She was the one in fact, you know they were a team, Bill had to get the votes so he had to sound and do a little bit more moderate things, but Hillary was free to pursue socialist health care and a number of other things, she didn't have to get the votes.

It ended up that she got negative votes so they had to shut her up and put her in charge of, you know, table decorations in the White House in the second term, and that didn't sit well, so now she's back with a vengeance. And she probably bakes some cookies for good measure and there are probably some pictures of that somewhere. Now, Mrs. Clinton said that one of the ways to help reduce abortion is of course adoption. Whatever happened to the Clintons' plan to adopt a baby? Remember that, Mr. Snerdley? Remember them talking about that? The Clintons, they were thinking seriously of adopting. But then the next election came and went without any harm, and so the plan was dropped. All I'm saying here, folks, is that her move to the right, even if it is nothing but semantics, makes it too risky for existing Republicans to go to her left. They may do it. I mean, I'm not saying they're smart up there. I'm saying on the surface she ends up being the Republicans, the conservatives' best friend because she's going to keep them where they are. On the other hand you've got the left wing of this party that who knows how they'll react to all this. That's why I say go to the Democrat websites and I guarantee you that you will find a boiling cauldron of discontent and anger over this and a lot of other things.

snip
"For the moment, I don't care whether... I don't believe her anyway. That's not the point here. To get into a discussion of whether or not Hillary is being honest is a waste of time. The discussion needs to focus on what the effect of this is.

This is either going to blow up the Democratic Party or it's going to be the long-awaited sponge that sops up all the refuse and sort of cleans it out. Only time will tell. On the other end of this, the Republicans had better pay close attention to this, because we ought not make the mistake that was made in 1994, and I've gone through this once or twice before.

In '94 we assumed mistakenly, "Well, that's it. Country has finally agreed with us," and we just started going, you know, full speed down the trail without a continuing education process. Now, I don't think that mistake is going to be made this time, but the Republicans had better realize that there is a shift in party ID.

There are more people now calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, and the number of people calling themselves independents is at an all-time high, and among some of those independents are Democrats who would rather be Democrats, but they don't have the guts to admit it because how far kooky left the party has gone, and a lot of them are in the south and a lot of them are the old Reagan Democrats who were Reagan Democrats on the basis of not just fiscal but cultural, social issues as well."
snip

Faith based Initiative supporter..support the military,veterans benefits, now the softened rhetoric on abortion,fiscal rsponsibility, all "Triangulation"...She's well known to be a lib and feminist, really despise the military and that may hold the wild eyed lefty loonies while she sings her siren song to the rest of the sheeple.

Prepare yourselves! Expect to hear sprinkled throughout her rhetoric in the coming months and years, little related situations about her motherhood, remembering when Chelsea did this and that, inciting knowing chuckles from particularly Moms, but Dads, too about typical child rearing and parenting situations..the trials, foibles, celebrations and victories or little cute stories about her niece or nephew's funny incident .. blab blah blah .. She'll HAVE to include Bill in it, just in a SMALL way, somehow .. can't avoid it, if only to say things like, "Bill was out campaigning ((messing around)) one time, and Chelsea and I were .....etc."

I have NO doubt it's coming .. as this contrived, calculated, totally orchestrated, cunning and predictable brainwashing period begins.

People will actually start drinking a little Kook.. .er.. Kool Aid .. intelligent people, because she's going to be SO believable ... so charming and convincing. It's going to be played so well that people will actually be saying to each other, "Wow .. maybe she's really changed. Why .. why ...she sounds like me! She's gone through the same things as our family!"

Yup .. she's gonna start very gradually and cleverly intentionally speaking and relating to Moms and Grandmoms and Dad and Grandads... particularly stressing her Midwest upbringing and childhood, and "traditional family" scenarios, and no more strident abortion speeches .. or screeching like a banshee, as has already started.

You're gonna hear a lot about Chelsea's baby days and growing up years ...little "adorable" inside stories, and cutesy inside family jokes and stories (all manufactured). Why not? It's ammunition and manna for the masses!

She's gonna go from this

and this

to this

and some very feminine and smiling "pretty in pink" looks like this

I fully expect a longer, softer, just-one-of-you-Moms-hairdo, too and a gradual wardrobe makeover away from Krusty to softer necklines, scarves, pearls, etc. Everything's being focus-grouped .. everything.

What's so amazing is that: we know it's coming and what she's up to; she knows we know it's coming and what she's up to and that it's completely contrived and calculated; and yet, she'll still do it and carry it off, for the most part, and make tremendous strides. It's both pathetic and frightening .. just how many people are going to succumb to her "sincerity" and actually believed she's changed and she's "just wunnerful, that Hillary."

Just my 4-1/2 cents

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