We See Human Excellence on Display,
Democrats See O.J. In the Witness Chair
January 11, 2006
They didn't lay a hand on him. This is some of the reporting that you get if you look at morning newspapers today, or listen to some television. They didn't lay a hand on him, meaning Judge Alito. You have to wonder: are they talking about a highly respected judge or are they talking about a perp on the verge of beating a rap? If you listen to the media and the Democrats, they know they've got a criminal. They know they've got O.J. This guy is O.J. He did it. But damn, they can't prove it because this guy won't talk! And why won't he talk? Because he can't talk. Joe Biden, in 30 minutes of questioning, took up 25 minutes of it. It was so absurd that the New York Times charted his 30 minutes of questioning. The New York Times is not happy with these senators today. I have that story coming up. But it's like the good guys didn't get the bad guy. "Not yet. Not yet. There's still hope that we might trip up the bad guy. He might lose his temper. He might salivate. He might drool."
I've made a career, folks, combining news and entertainment into one presentation, but I think I may have found a competitor out there, the pride of Delaware, Senator Biden. I'm not going to bother you with any audio, but Senator Biden was just over the top. You ought to see some pictures of other Democrats on the committee when Biden is in the middle of his questioning. They're sitting there hiding their eyes in their hands and they're lowering their heads and they are clearly, clearly embarrassed. I'll tell you what struck me yesterday, and I made this point yesterday, and I think we are living here, ladies and gentlemen, in a seminal moment. Now, let me very carefully reconstruct the recent past.
In the last 30 years, whenever a Republican president would nominate a conservative judge to particularly the Supreme Court, or any court there were televised hearings, the Democrats would come out with their 30-year-old playbook ammo. "He's a conservative so he's a racist; he's a sexist. He's a bigot and he's a homophobe. He won't rent Brokeback Mountain, for example -- and in fact he might not even let his kids watch it. That's what a closed-minded #### these conservative judges are. In addition to that, they want to take away a woman's right to choose. They want to take away a woman's right to an abortion. They want to take away everybody's civil liberties. They want to move blacks to the back of the bus. They don't believe in freedom, they don't believe in civil liberties, the Constitution is basically going to be shredded once these guys get on the bench." I mean, all manner of hell is described and attributed to these people.
It's been that way for 30 years. Now it doesn't work. The Democrats haven't revised the playbook, they haven't revised their strategy. Now they're sort of pinned down, too, because they have to ask certain questions and cop certain attitudes to keep the kook base out there that funds them in action to keep 'em happy. Not to say that they would be any different if that kook base wasn't there, but the kook base being there ensures that they have to take the positions and say the things that they are saying. They are so arrogant and so condescending, they don't have the slightest clue that time has passed them by. They don't have the slightest clue that all of these charges, all of these characterizations of conservatives, all of these never-ending attempts not just to defeat the nomination, but to destroy these people, is now seen for what it is -- and that's for two reasons.
One: There is a new media, and there has been for about 18 years, which has been able to put in perspective for the American people exactly who the Democrats are and what their plans, policies, and playbook all are. Second thing that's happened is: You can't call people monsters by label, "racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe," for all these years, no matter who they are. I don't care if it's Bork or Clarence Thomas, John Roberts or Sam Alito. You can't do that. After awhile with a more informed public, they simply say, "It's the same old, same old. Nobody can be that bad." You can't spend half a day trying to pin the guy down on wanting to strip search little ten-year-old girls and have the American people believe it. You just can't. They don't see that. But there's another thing that's happened here, too, folks, and that is they can't compete intellectually with the best and the brightest that we on the conservative side can put up. They just can't compete with it. They are not intellectually prepared. They are not intellectually capable.
Their arrogance doesn't permit them to understand and know this. They think they're smarter than he is. They think that they will know the details of cases on which he has ruled better than he will. They are trying to trip him up on his own decisions, and they don't know the decisions. They're relying on similar arrogant staff. A lot of people watching probably amazed that Alito knows the cases he's ruled on better than the Democrat senators know the cases that he has ruled on. I mean, it's just delectable. It's delicious. It's delightful to watch. Last night on Hardball, Senator Biden admitted that the Supreme Court hearings are a waste of time because these judges won't answer their questions. That's not why they're a waste of time. These questions are a waste of time because the judges are making the senators look foolish. He's answering every question they are asking. He's not avoiding anything. I've got a couple of news stories here that talk about he's far more expansive in his answers than John Roberts was, and yet we still have news stories contradicting that, saying, "Oh, no, no! This guy is buttoned down. He's real tight and he's not giving up anything." He's giving these guys more!
They don't even know what they're getting, because it's all on matters of the law, the Constitution, which they really don't favor as currently written. What's happening here, ladies and gentlemen, it echoes something that I have been saying for decades on this program. It was a sheer pleasure -- and it remains so. It is a sheer pleasure to see pure human excellence in motion and on display. It's noteworthy how different that excellence can manifest itself. Sam Alito is not John Roberts, but he's just as good in my judgment. Both are different from Scalia, who is a favorite of mine, as you all know. But all three of them embody human excellence. They've all strived to be the best they can be. They've all moved to the top. Not with spin, not with PR. They've done it on the basis of their achievement and their accomplishment, their work ethic, and their intellect. They know who they are. They like themselves. They're very happy. They're not trying to pretend to be something other than what they are, which is an admirable sense of self-possession. They are comfortable in their own skin.
They don't feel the need to make excuses for what they think. They don't feel need to make excuses for how they dress or who they are in general. This is human excellence on display, and this hearing, folks, is a reminder why we conservatives consider the courts something special. Snerdley says the hearings are boring because we're not getting any news of pubic hairs on Coke cans or any reviews of what's been checked out of the video store. They gave us these expectations, and so Snerdley is bored. What we are getting... You know, you stop and think. This is the only opportunity the American people ever have to hear from the nominees to the Supreme Court. It's up to the senators in this country that serve on the judiciary committee to do a thorough examination and draw out these people so that we can know who they are, because the man we elected president is appointing these people. That gives us confidence in one way, and what's happening here is we are finding out how special the courts are.
This is the best display of our intellectual firepower on the right. First John Roberts, and now Sam Alito. This is an excellent display of our philosophical dominance over contemporary liberalism. He is toying with these arrogant SOBs -- I mean "sobs," as in crying. He is simply toying with them. The New York Times can write all they want about how he was "pale and wobbly" after questioning from Schumer. That's what they want the case to be, as though this is some kind of a prize fight, but it was not that at all, and he was not pale and wobbly. He buried Schumer on the question of abortion, literally buried him, and I'm going to have the audio for you coming up. We have the much better arguments; we have the much better advocates. It's particularly delicious to watch these hearings and individuals of real learning and achievement and intellectual candlepower run rings around these arrogant Senate inquisitors on the judiciary committee.
It's sort of like watching Vince Young play against the JV squad at USC. No offense, USC. I'm just telling you, when you see human excellence on display, you see a person in command of his or her area of specialty, it brings out admiration in all -- well, almost all -- of us. It has a timeless appeal whether you're talking about a judge or an athlete or a writer or a political leader or a (a-hem) media figure or radio talk show host, like me -- and of course when you see human excellence on display, it exposes mediocrity for what it is, and that contrast is inescapable in these hearings, and that alone makes them valuable and worthwhile. More than ever we are seeing windbags as windbags, gas bags as gas bags, and people who are exhausted, hollowed out husks are seen as exhausted, hollowed out husks. They're mere animals at Jurassic Park, desperately holding on to a tired, worn-out series of ideas that have not been updated in 30 to 40 to 50 years: such as Senator Kennedy, such as Senator Leahy, such as Senator Schumer, Senator Turban, the whole bunch of them.
I almost feel like exempting Herb Kohl because I don't think he knows he's there. He's just reading the question his staff gives. He barely looks up from the paper. Folks, for those of you who fall into this trap that excellence is somehow offensive because others are left out, we are looking here at the result of the pursuit of excellence, and it's found on the conservative side particularly when talking about the courts and the Constitution of this country. So whether you think these hearings are valuable, whether you think they're boring, I am telling you for those who are watching and for those who are being told about these hearings by people like me, this is a brilliant and great display of triumph of the pursuit of excellence and intellectual pursuit, being the best you can be against a bunch of rank amateurs who will look at excellence on the conservative side and see for all intents and purposes a guilty suspect trying to dig up the dirt. There is no dirt. They just can't compete with excellence.
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RUSH: I'll tell you what, Senator Kennedy, they're getting so frustrated. They're trying to ratchet it up today, because the media, the New York Times and Washington Post, LA Times all had stories today how they were just too gentle. They were too courtly. There was too much senatorial civility going on yesterday. "Come on! Let's really knock this guy out," the media wants. So Senator Kennedy is trying to today, asking a question then not letting Alito answer it, and saying, "I guess I'm not going to get an answer to my question."
"Well, senator it's hard to say after ten to 15 years."
"Well, that's my question. How many years, ten or 15 or 12? Would you pick one?"
"Well, I don't know, senator. Senator, I'm bending over backgrounds."
The Senate Democrats are going to love him now. Here you got this guy talking about bending over backgrounds in the era of Brokeback Mountain. This guy knows how to play these people.
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RUSH: All right, I want to play a couple of audio sound bites. I want to go back to yesterday. We have a See, I Told You So, just to show you that I know these liberals like the back of my hand, more than that, every square inch of my glorious and shrinking, naked body. This is what I said yesterday about Leahy and the Democrat senators on the committee.
RUSH ARCHIVE: You'll have Leahy out there, if they've not been out there already, Kennedy, "Well, I was not really pleased with some of the answers. We need more clarification from Judge Alito, he side-stepped some of these important questions. That's the reason we have hearings. We'll get to the bottom of this. Give us time. We'll have our witnesses coming up. We'll get to the bottom of all this, and I thought it was very interesting that Judge Alito found it necessary to skirt around some of these very important questions he was asked today. We didn't hear what we wanted to hear, and so we're enthused about our possibility."
RUSH: Here now is Pat Leahy today.
LEAHY: A number of us have been troubled by what we see as inconsistencies in some of the answers and we're going to want to go into those in some depth on the issue of one person, one vote, Vanguard, recusal, unitary theory of government, CAPS, and so on. I want to clear up in my own mind what I -- and many over here, what we see as inconsistencies. I know many have announced up here exactly how they're going to vote before they even ask questions. I'm one of the ones to make up my mind after asking the questions so there will be a number of more.
RUSH: Do you think he sounds...? H.R. says Leahy is sounding more and more like Larry Flynt. Let's see if I can imitate him. The last time I imitated Larry Flynt I could hear. I didn't have my cochlear implant, you know, so I have to remember how I last heard Larry Flynt. "Ah, ah, well... Ahhhhhh, ah, ha-ha! Ah, ha-ha! What you get on ahhh...ahhh... what till you see...ahhhhhhh."
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RUSH: All right. I stole a couple glances at the hearings during the EIB profit center break here at the bottom of the hour and it looks like I'm right. The leftist groups have apparently whipped their boys into shape today. Ted Kennedy is just trying to be as mean and disrespectful as he can. The media is urging this as well. The media, as I said, is angry the Democrats were too civil yesterday. "Too much senatorial civility going on out there." Democrats and the media are saying exactly the same thing today, but this is going to backfire. It's going to make them look even worse. They didn't lay a glove on the guy yesterday. Now they're going to go get mean. Now they're going to try to hold him accountable for things other people have said and done and written, and the problem with it is that, A, none of what they're accusing him of doing is true. Secondly, he's not a threatening guy. People watching this do not look at Sam Alito and see the monster that the Democrats are trying to create.
In fact, that's a great way to describe what's going on here: Kennedy and Leahy are insisting that Alito become the monster they want him to be. "Yesterday he was inconsistent. He was skirting their questions. So we're going to ask the same questions today, and they're gonna demand answers, and they're not going to let him get away," and Leahy talks about, "Well, I'm going to talk about this issue of one person, one vote." Can I tell you what that is? That is an attempt to try to tar this man with the idea that blacks are not full citizens and they shouldn't get full representation. Is anybody going to buy this? The man's already been confirmed for the district bench, been confirmed in previous Senate confirmations. This is absurd -- and this is what they don't get. This is where they are just arrogant as they can be. You know, nobody talks about it. Ted Kennedy was admitted to some club at Harvard that was exclusive. You had to have a family with a certain amount of wealth, and you could only be white. It was more exclusive than Alito has ever been in any membership.
Ted Kennedy was admitted to Harvard as a legacy student. His dad and older brothers attended, he was expelled for cheating from Harvard. He left a woman to drown at Chappaquiddick and he preaches morally to this man, Sam Alito. Now, they used to be able to get away with this. They don't anymore because Ted Kennedy is not this nation's idea of the future. Ted Kennedy is not the people of this nation's idea of what the Supreme Court ought to be or our national security ought to be or our tax policy ought to be or on and on and on, and more about Kennedy. They're trying to focus on this business of CAP, this Princeton organization. I told you on Monday he joined this because of ROTC concerns. They're going to bring that back up today. The unitary theory of government. They badgered him all day yesterday about that. The unitary theory is that the president runs everything and Congress may as well not even show up or even get elected, and he actually thinks that he's going to trip up and say, "Yep, I think the president is all-powerful and you people are nothing but dirt and you may as well leave." They want him to say something like that. They actually are arrogant enough to think they can trip him up into doing so.
Ted Kennedy's dad, Joe Sr., an anti-Semite, sympathetic to the Nazis. FDR had to I can't think Joe Kennedy from Britain where he was ambassador because he was sending sympathetic messages to the German ambassador through back channels. I don't think Alito's dad did any of this but that's the same kind of thing they're trying to tar and feather Alito with. Now they're trying to paint Alito as a racist based on something someone else wrote. It's tired, it's worn out, it's the same old same old 30 years plus they've been doing this. I'll guarantee you what's happened. They heard from MoveOn.org. They heard from the left-wing blogs. They heard from George Soros last night, and they were threatened. "If you guys don't do something..." Can I tell you what I heard? I talked to somebody who was there yesterday. I can't mention any names. I'm not going to say that it's cut-and-dried, but after yesterday's hearings were concluded, last night, the Democrats were so depressed and angry with the performance of their committee members that they hadn't been able to lay a hand on Alito, that they had lost the whole moment here, that they were thinking of going to chairman Specter and saying, "We don't want a third day of questioning. We're just going to get rid of it after today and turn it over to the panels."
Now I don't know if that actually happened but I can tell you: last night there was depression all over. There was happiness in the White House. They were depressed as hell throughout the Democratic Party because they really thought they had this guy nailed. That's where their arrogance is killing them. They have no idea that he is toying with them. They have no idea that he's running rings around them, they don't. Other Democrats do. Democrats watching this do. Well, I don't even think it's that. I think these left-wing fanatic kooks are simply upset that they're not hearing words from these senators describing Alito as the racist-sexist-bigot-homophobe threat to democracy. He's going to take away everybody's privacy, all this gobbledygook that is simply absurd -- and they just want to hear that because to them that means that we've engaged in the fight. Don't forget Ted Kennedy. He paid another student to cheat for him. He was expelled from Harvard for cheating. He paid a student to cheat for him. This guy's record is nothing stellar himself, and he sits there by virtue of his election as a moral inquisitor of this man Alito.
I mean, look at Leahy. Leahy voted over and over again for Robert Byrd, "Sheets" Byrd, former member of the Klan, to be the Senate majority leader. Really? How come we can't hold that against him? Let's put Leahy in the witness chair. "I understand that you used to have racist sympathies." "I resent that." "Well, he voted for Senator Byrd, a former member of the Klan to lead the Senate and your party for ten years. If that's not sympathetic to racism, I don't know what it is." "I resent this accusation." That's exactly what they'd do, but that's what they're trying to do to Alito. Only Alito doesn't have the close ties to all these isms that these Democrats do. Sexism, womanizing? Go to Ted Kennedy. Leaking, destroying foreign policy efforts? Pat Leahy. Don't even talk to (interruption). Oh, is that right? Is that right? Senator Kennedy is doing that? Senator Kennedy is now in an argument with Chairman Specter. They want to go into executive session. "Executive session" means they kick everybody out and they go behind closed doors because Senator Kennedy wants to present some sensitive evidence before the committee.
Now, let me tell you what that ploy is. That ploy is designed to make the public think, "Whoa! We found something about this guy that means he is a genuine threat, and it's so bad, it's so sensitive, to make it public would threaten the republic. We can't do this. We want to go into executive session." So did Kennedy win this or not? Specter is moving on, will consider it later. It's nothing but a tactic. It's a trick. It's nothing more. Now, look at the New York Times today. This is the point that I opened my show with yesterday. The headline of the New York Times: "But Enough About You, Judge; Let's Hear What I Have to Say." I opened the program yesterday by saying, "What made Judge Alito think these hearings were about him?" He had the audacity to give an opening statement on Monday. Does he realize these hearings are not about him? These hearings are about fund-raising. These hearings are about advancing the liberal agenda. He had the audacity to even speak on Monday during his opening statement. Who told him he could interrupt the Democrat senators and make an opening statement?
So Elisabeth Bumiller writes: "But Enough About You, Judge; Let's Hear What I Have to Say -- The Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. were supposed to be about the judge, but on Tuesday it sometimes seemed as though somebody forgot to tell the senators on the Judiciary Committee. The lure of 50 cameras and the captive audience in the Senate Hart Office Building appeared too much of a temptation for some of Capitol Hill's windiest lions, who began by promising not to run a marathon session of questions, then did so anyway." Excuse me, Elisabeth, it has nothing to do with the lure of 50 cameras and the captive audience will the Senate. It has everything to do with the fact that the left is trying to use this attention to focus attention on themselves and their agenda and to fund-raise and to try to poison the minds of the American people toward conservatism -- and it's nothing new here.
This is not the first time we've had a bunch of windbags go uncontrolled during Senate confirmation hearings. "At one point," she writes, "Senator Kennedy was even granted two extra minutes from the committee chairman, drawing groans from colleagues, among them, Charles Schumer of New York. 'Be quiet over there,' Kennedy admonished his fellow committee members to laughter. 'Scurrilous dogs,' he called them." That was because Kennedy said he couldn't see the time clock. That's not the problem. He couldn't focus on the time clock. It's right there in front of these guys. They can all see the time clock. He just couldn't focus on it. "The highest ratio of words per panelist to words per nominee was that of Senator Biden, Democrat of Delaware, who managed to ask five questions in his 30-minute time allotment. Judge Alito, who had been sitting without expression through Mr. Biden's musings interrupted the Senator mid-word, got out three sentences and then settled in for nearly 26 minutes more of Mr. Biden."
Thirty minutes of questioning, 26 minutes of it taken up by Biden. Let me tell you Democrats something. You are not going to defeat this guy by having your windbag go on and on and on and on and on. I thought it was so funny to see Biden last night on Hardball. After that performance, I can't imagine any television show that would want him, but and he Chris decided to cry in the same beer last night and muse about, "What can we do to stop this guy?" I'm going to tell you, you're going to have to let him speak if you're going to have any hope of stopping him. You can't sit there and think the power of your intellect and the power of your words is going to convince the American people this guy is what he is when he looks like the most harmless and docile, gentle man that's been before this committee in a number of years and yet they're trying to create a monster out of this guy and they're now flailing away. Their motivation is all wrong. Their efforts are incompetent, and their intentions are impure.
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RUSH: All right, here's what Ted Kennedy wants. He wants to subpoena the custodian of the Library of Congress where his Princeton records on this CAP club are being held, and he was going ballistic. Specter and he were arguing about it, Specter said I'll take it under advisement, went on to Senator Grassley. They want to subpoena the CAP records. I'll tell you what: Go ahead and make it public, Ted. Hell your side leaks national security stuff. Make it public, whatever it is in those files. Make it public if you get it. But if you do, if you do go into executive session, don't let Leahy in there because he'll leak whatever goes on in there. It's amazing. We had John Bolton up there. We've had Dick Cheney, George Bush, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Pickering, Bill Pryor, Sam Alito. All of these people, according to these Democrats, are crooked racists and Ted Kennedy and his ilk are held up as the moral arbiters of the country. That's why this doesn't play. No matter who these guys see -- Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen -- they are all racist crooks. They are going to deny you your freedom. They are going to deny you your rights. They are going to deny you everything. They're going to put you in jail, they're going to move you to the back of the bus. They may, if you're black, move you back to Jamaica or South Africa, who knows. They're crooked racists, every damn one of them. That's why this stuff doesn't play, folks. All right, Tony in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You're up first today on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hello. Hey, today Alito nailed Durbin. Durbin thought he had Alito backed into a corner by bringing up a lady that he worked with in the US attorney's office who was appalled at his CAP membership and Alito just sat there patiently, waited for Durbin to finish his mantra and the first thing Alito said, "Yes, I know her. I hired her, which shows I'm not against equality for women and minorities."
RUSH: (Laughing.) "Yes, I know. I hired her." Durbin, "Blah, bluh blah?" And I tell you, someone on the staff got punched during the break, because the staff sends these guys out there with all this. It's like yesterday. Yeah, I guess it was Monday during opening statements there was Ted Kennedy saying, "He's never, never, in all of his years, ruled in favor of minorities in one case." Then they found four. They found four! (Laughing.) Somebody on Kennedy's staff probably got promoted for that, but Durbin's staff somebody probably got punched. Wait 'til you hear the exchange we're going to play for you in the first segment of the next hour. Wait 'til you hear the segment from yesterday with Schumer and Alito on abortion. I'm telling you, it is just classic. The LA Times today, Ronald Brownstein: "Democrats Cast Wide Net Seeking Alito flaw." Let me translate this for you: Democrats are screwed. They're going to cast a wide net. They can't cast a wide net if they won't shut up. But, see? "We know this guy is guilty. We know he's OJ! But we're not Marsha Clark and we're not Christopher Darden. We are going to nail this guy if it takes us all year. We're going to get this guy because we know he's guilty."
Why?
"Because he's a conservative! That means he's a racist crook!"
Listen to this lead from Brownstein yesterday: "Democrats resembled a guerrilla army searching for a weak point in a heavily guarded fortress Tuesday as they challenged Sam Alito in his Senate judiciary committee confirmation hearing." Ron, thank you. If you really want to portray these lions of the Senate as a guerrilla army searching for a weak point -- these guys that sabotage every army that they fund -- if you want to compare them to a guerrilla army, I got one better for you, Ron. Ready? Put this in your lead tomorrow, or after the vote: "The Democrats resembled a failed insurgency."
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RUSH: I'll tell you what. Let's subpoena Ted Kennedy's records from Harvard. Let's do that. We're going to start subpoenaing the Library of Congress over Alito, and then let's subpoena the DA's records from the inquest up at Chappaquiddick. Let's fire off subpoenas all over the place here. This stuff is never going to happen. A big problem that these Democrats have is they failed to dampen the expectations of their unhinged base. The unhinged base thought they were going to get another replay of Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork. But we've got to the point now where the nature of the evidence finally trumps the seriousness of the charge with these guys.
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