Rush Limbaugh: Why Do We Have To Play Games?

RUSH: Here's the president this morning in the Oval Office, a portion of his remarks on the White House counsel Harriet Miers' nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

BUSH: Over the past five years I've spoken clearly to the American people about the qualities I look for in a Supreme Court justice. A justice must be a person of accomplishment and sound legal judgment. A justice must be a person of fairness and unparalleled integrity, and a justice must strictly apply the Constitution and laws of the United States and not legislate from the bench.

RUSH: You're going to hear a lot of people say, "What about her judicial philosophy? He nominates somebody without knowing what their judicial philosophy is." That's one of the reasons that Reagan nominated sitting judges. It's not to say the president does not know what her judicial philosophy is. She is a lawyer, and as such she may have a judicial philosophy, and if she does, he probably knows what it is. But there's no record of it for the rest of us to know. Which includes the Democrats. They're going to have to go out there and dig deep. And make no mistake about one thing. Even though we've got Democrats out there saying favorable things, or at least non-negative things right now, make no mistake about the fact that they probably already hired their investigators, they're out there doing their opposition research, and left-wing groups are on the trail and they're going to dig up as much dirt on this woman as they can, unless their investigation is, "Wow, did we dodge a bullet here. This is exactly what we're looking for," and just mount token opposition for their fund-raising efforts on the left. Okay, we've confirmed Vice President Cheney will lead off the next hour, he'll be here at 1:06 when we kick off the next hour of the program. Here's more from the president on Harriet Miers as a pioneer.

BUSH: Harriet became a pioneer in the field of law. Breaking down barriers to women that remained a generation after President Reagan appointed Justice O'Connor to the Supreme Court. Harriet was the first woman to be hired at one of Dallas' top law firms, the first woman to become president of that firm, the first woman to lead a large law firm in the state of Texas. Harriet also became the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association, and the first woman elected president of the State Bar of Texas.

HARRIET MIERS: From my early days as a clerk in the federal district court and throughout almost three decades of legal practice, bar service, and community service, I have always had a great respect and admiration for the genius that inspired our constitution and our system of government. My respect and admiration have only grown over these past five years that you have allowed me to serve the American people as a representative of the executive branch. The wisdom of those who drafted our Constitution and conceived our nation as functioning with three strong and independent branches have proven truly remarkable. It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders' vision of the proper role of the courts in our society.

RUSH: That's exactly right. The Constitution is made up of words. Those words were specifically chosen. Those words were not the result of throwing it up against the wall and seeing what looks good. These words in the Constitution were specifically chosen, and if she has a devotion to the words of the Constitution, as she seems to here, then that's a plus, even though there's no way of actually knowing. A lot of people are going to be commenting on this, folks, and a lot of people who thought they had influence with the White House, a lot of people who thought they had influence with the selection process are now going to be let down and disappointed, thinking that they were not listened to. It's going to run the gamut. The thing that you have to remember here is that we just don't know, other than what we are told by the president, if you want to place faith and trust in the president, as you always have, then you should have no problem here. If you do think that there were known quantities out there in terms of judges that we'd have no question about who might face a tougher confirmation battle, but still confirmation -- that's what this is all about, the 20-year battle, 30-year battle to get to this point to reshape the direction of the court, particularly as the court has evolved as a political institution in this country, that must change. And we also know, this is another concern that I have.

You can look at Justice Kennedy. Justice Kennedy was the replacement for Robert Bork. And it was well assumed then that he was pretty much like Judge Bork, not nearly as fiery or as combative, but in terms of judicial philosophy, pretty much like Judge Bork. What happens is, you know, Washington is still a culture that's dominated by the left, both politically and socially, as well as the media. That's one area of the country where they're still dominant. And so the people who live there fall under that pressure. And if you care about what the Washington Post style section says about you, if you care about what the New York Times editorial page or Washington Post editorial page says about you, then you can find yourself growing or you can find yourself evolving to positions to get that kind of praise and credit. And this is a fear that a lot of people have when an unknown quantity is sent up. These judges are all the time invited to appear at various legal conferences abroad and throughout the country. They're invited to appear, their self-worth enhances their self-image, and their desire to be taken seriously by the elites who determine who's good and who's bad, which goes on in Washington, those kinds of pressures are brought to bear. So when a nominee comes up about whom very little is known, these natural fears surface, "Oh, no, the pressures of Washington, what are they going to be on this nominee?" You don't have those questions so much with a known quantity.

I mention all this to you to help you put all the comments that you're going to have and hear from people from now until the end of this confirmation process in a little bit of perspective. And if you hear anything out there, I don't care what pundit or talking head says anything, and where, and if you have a question about it, call me and we'll do our best to talk our way through this and make sense of some of the criticisms. Some of the criticism is oriented in fear and some of that is genuine. There is some skepticism and there's some downright anger out there over this, and there are a host reasons for all of that. Here's Chuck Schumer. By the way, Chuck Schumer was appearing at a Capitol Hill news conference today. Was asked by a reporter, "Do you have a theory for why the president didn't choose a person further to the right?" Now, that question goes to the heart of my only real problem with this and that is the pick seems to come from a position of weakness. So we have a nominee that a reporter already said, "Well, this is not a conservative, what do you think about that, Senator Schumer?"

SCHUMER: I think they realize that the extreme wing of their party's views are not close to the American people's views. I think they're beginning to realize it's one of the reasons they have problems in their second term, and yet they couldn't choose an avowed moderate. That's why probably Consuelo Callahan was not chosen. So they chose someone with not very much of a discernable record, and that's what they did with John Roberts as well.

RUSH: I think they realized the extreme wing of their party's views are not close to the American people's. Senator Schumer, have you looked at a map? Have you looked at an electoral map of the country lately? Do you really think, sir, that your views are the mainstream today? You couldn't be more mistaken. This is why fear of these people just infuriates me. It just rubs me the wrong way. These people are in the process, after 20 years of being neutered, they're being -- now, maybe not in Washington, maybe if you live and work and breathe in Washington, you still get the sense that they run the show -- but you go out around the country, and you go out around all these red states, even to some of the blue state areas, there's no love for the Democrats, there's no wish the Democrats were back in power. There's no general consensus out there, particularly among Republicans, that Bush has screwed up. There's no consensus that Bush has bollixed everything here and it's all lost and it's all over. That's what the mainstream press and liberal critics want you to believe.

They think they've been successful at that but they haven't been. They no more have any idea how to read the hearts and minds of the American people than somebody who doesn't live here does. And yet they apparently get away with defining the firms under which they will participate and so forth, and I just cringe at that. You know, they didn't win the election, they don't get to choose this, they don't get to determine the outcome of these choices. They get to participate in the vote, but as the minority, if they lose, that's tough toenails. That's why we're even going through silly moments where the left is trying to redefine minority. We always talk about minority rights. "We can't forget the minority." That's simply because they can't forget the fact that they've lost, they can't believe it, they want to try to redefine the fact that they have lost, into meaning that they've actually won. So in one sense, it's a missed opportunity. In the other sense, could be the most brilliant stealth pick that has ever been made. That's just it, we won't know for quite a while. Josie in Cincinnati, you're next, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: I'm hoping you can help me out. I'm so frustrated. The frustration for me lies in having to guess. You know, the people that elected President Bush, we are proud, blatant conservatives, and we would like him to nominate a proud, blatant conservative to the bench. Why the guessing game? It's as if we didn't win.

CALLER: But why guess? Why not give the people the chance to rally again behind a proud, blatant conservative?

RUSH: Now, what I'm hearing you say is that you're not necessarily filled with trust or faith that the president has chosen someone that he knows you would want.

CALLER: Well, that's true. I mean every decision kind of makes me wonder. I mean, I voted for President Bush, Rush, and I'd do it again because of a conservative you don't make a decision and then not give it the resources to succeed, but, you know, can he reciprocate a little bit? That's, you know, like where's the love?

RUSH: I appreciate your call, Josie. I have to run. By the way, let me deal with this right up -- give me Tracy from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, next, so I can deal with it right before we go to the break. Hi, Tracy, welcome to the program. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: I heard today that Harriet Mier gave money to the Bill Clinton campaign and the Al Gore campaign, and that just really concerns me.

RUSH: First -- she didn't give money to Clinton, that was an error. There was somebody, that was a Harris Myers that gave 250 bucks to Clinton down in Dallas also but it was not Harriet Miers. Harriet Miers gave money to Gore, gave money to Lloyd Bentsen, gave money to the Democrat National Committee, when she ran this law firm. I wouldn't worry about these donations at all, folks. She hasn't contributed to a Democrat since 1994. She made these donations when she was running this law firm. You never know. These may have been business donations. Many corporations, law firms, donate to both sides, just to cover their bases. You never know who's going to win. You have to deal with the winners. It's probably no more than that. Don't get all concerned about that. That's sort of a sidetrack issue. It's not going to give you too much of an indication about where the woman is now politically or what her judicial philosophy is. So, Tracy, thanks for the call.

CALLER: Yes. I am very comfortable with the nomination. First, listening to what President Bush said, but also I decided, you know, the measure of a person is oftentimes their own words, so I flipped over to C-SPAN to see if they had anything on. And they actually had Harriet Miers speaking before the National Republican Association of Lawyers, and they had a segment on -- I didn't get to listen to it all -- but the segment they played, she was defending Janice Rogers Brown and Patricia Owen and Mr. Gonzales, and the two women that have been nominated for positions on courts, and they have not even had an up-or-down vote. She first of all ran through their qualifications, gave her whole-hearted support, and really was calling for them to be able to have an up-and-down vote, and was indicating that this is part of the constitutional process, and she was very, very strong in her articulation of this type of thing, and you can tell that she's had years of experience as a litigator, she was very analytical, very sharp, and I'm thinking, you know, a woman who has been a trail blazer like this to be the first president of a prestigious law firm, she has been elected by her peers -- it's my understanding -- I think I got this right, to a national office in the Bar Association, and she was elected I think as president of the Texas Bar Association. This woman may be a dark horse to the rest of us, but I don't think she is to George Bush, and I think as president, one thing he has shown us, you know, he may have some weaknesses, I don't agree with everything that he's done, but he is very good at picking good, strong people to surround himself with. And I don't think he's gone wrong here.

RUSH: All right, well, I appreciate your point of View, Sandy. There is something to be said for this. I know a lot of people, there's something to be said here for the stealth nature. A lot of people remember, a lot of Republicans, that contingent from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, running around saying, "The Bush pick better be right here or I can't say I will support the pick." There's a lot we don't know, folks, and remember one of my theories and themes: there's a lot we don't know. And one of the things we don't know could well be that the White House has figured out that they don't want the filibuster fight because they don't want to lose it, and they don't want to lose a great pick and don't want to lose a great nominee, and the idea is to get somebody on the court that they trust and that is in the image of what the president has said, and one way of doing it is this, another way, John Roberts. The point is it always still goes back to, we won the elections. We did everything we were told to do, got people educated, got them to the polls, we won the elections, and now we still have to play games, we still have to fake and juke out the left, rather than just, "Okay, here's who we are, this is our nominee, this is the person or people that we want to be on the Supreme Court, these are the people we love, these are the people we trust," with no guessing game, and no roll of the dice. It always just still to me comes back to that.

If you do think that there were known quantities out there in terms of judges that we'd have no question about who might face a tougher confirmation battle, but still confirmation -- that's what this is all about, the 20-year battle, 30-year battle to get to this point to reshape the direction of the court, particularly as the court has evolved as a political institution in this country, that must change. And we also know, this is another concern that I have.

Rush is exactly right here, this may be the last justice that Bush gets to appoint. There WAS NOT a major battle over Roberts, and I think Bush should have appointed a "known" conservative and faced a fight if that's what it came to.

Hopefully, Bush did not get duped the way his father did with Souter and the way Reagan did with Kennedy and O'Connor. I trust Bush to do the right thing, but I must admit I am worried.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Warren Rudman (our thankfully FORMER glorious Senator from NH) pushing hard for Souter at the time? That should have been a huge red flag right there.
Concerning Miss Miers, there ain't nothin for us to do now but wait and see, is there? What's the point of making a fuss? I don't see anything bad here.

Last time it was just Coulter and a few others. People said "If Mark Levin likes him, that's good enough for me." Others said Roberts was just a prelude for the REAL fight, which would be the second nominee (even though that never made any sense.) So here we are, and it's not just Coulter this time. It's also Levin, and Rush (which de facto means Hannity must be in the same boat,) Malkin, Kristol, Frum. I mean the only ones with decent things to say about this pick had names like Schumer and Reid.

Bush has vowed to avoid the mistakes his father made in office. Do conservatives really think that George W. Bush would knowingly nominate another David Souter? And unlike the Souter nomination, Bush chose someone he has known personally and worked with closely for many years. How can the President have that much personal and professional contact with a person for over a decade and not have any idea of what she stands for? Does that make sense to anyone?

Harriet Miers lead sponser in the Senate is Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), who is not known for liberal, pro-abort views. Do conservatives think that Cornyn wants a pro-abort RINO to replace Sandra Day O'Conner?

I have to agree with Rush on this. There was no need to be so defensive.

The liberals are intellectually bankrupt. The problem is with the wimpy way that the GOP presents it's point of view. They should be LOUD AND PROUD conservative. That's the way to win elections, it's been proven time after time.

This silly cat and mouse game is pointless and unnecessary. And if this nominee turns out to be Souter redux, harmful.

Again, the President knows this woman well, and he obviously has faith in her. I am just astounded at the reaction here on FR to this woman. It is as if people want a war with the confirmation, they want the country more divided. There are those saying she is going to be a good conservative justice, but they are still angry she is the nominee! Figure that one out! I just am sickened by the trashing on here today, sickened!!!

Every Republican president in history has made the mistake of appointing a justice who wasn't what conservatives hoped for.

I don't think GWB would knowingly appoint a liberal or moderate, but then again I never thought Reagan would get duped either and he did twice!

...RUSH: He may have. He may have nominated here a very proud conservative....

And if he did not, he drove the final stake through the heart of the Republic.

I am not "trashing" Miers, I trust Bush, but then again a lot of people trusted Reagan on O'Connor and Kennedy and look where that got us.

I am hopeful that she will be a wonderful constructionist, but it's the "unknown element" to her that concerns me.

Rush was off today, IMO and one caller got his goat. Caught surprised like the rest of us he had no answers. He even got The Vice President of The United States on to save face and he challenged Cheney to explain it - Rush does very few interviews.

However he did say in the first minutes that maybe it's a 'rope-a-dope.' And he never repeated it.

Cheney's no dope, and I doubt any nominee would get the nod without his approval.

Perhaps this anti-nominee attitude is premature, we just don't know.

"There's a lot we don't know, folks, and remember one of my theories and themes: there's a lot we don't know. And one of the things we don't know could well be that the White House has figured out that they don't want the filibuster fight because they don't want to lose it, and they don't want to lose a great pick and don't want to lose a great nominee, and the idea is to get somebody on the court that they trust and that is in the image of what the president has said, and one way of doing it is this, another way, John Roberts."

Dittos Rush.

...Bush has vowed to avoid the mistakes his father made in office...

His father's mistake was to admit to the truth of his globalist agenda.

George W. Carter has legions of artificially sweetened, artificial flavored, fruit drink consumers, spreading his crap for him, just like Moonies.

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