Bush, Frist Did Not Dispatch Graham & DeWine to Make a Deal

Rush Limbaugh ^ | 5/27/05 | Rush Limbaugh

[wdkeller]

Bush, Frist Did Not Dispatch Graham & DeWine to Make a Deal

May 27, 2005

RUSH: I'm going to mention this because -- and I saw the report that I'm going to talk about. It was on FOX News last night at the top of the show on Brit Hume's 6:00 show on Fox, and I saw it, and I said, "Well, okay. The spin has begun," is my reaction to it. But now I've been getting e-mails today from people who believe it. So I decided to check it out. The top of the program last night, Major Garrett reported. Now, this is not a criticism of Major Garrett. Major Garrett reported that he was told by senior Republican sources that Senators DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal on judges. You understand this? Fox reported that Mike DeWine and Lindsey Graham were sent to that meeting chaired by McCain and Warner, by Frist and the White House, to cut the best possible deal on the judges. Now, if that were true, it would mean that Frist admitted he didn't have the votes. "Get your ass over there, make a deal, Lindsey. Get over there, Senator Graham and Senator DeWine and make a deal." So I said, "Okay." This was the first bit of spin that I had been treated to since this all happened, so I decided to check into it, and to the best of my ability to check in and verify this, it seems that this assertion is false. It seems that it is totally false.

That neither Senator Frist nor the White House had anything to do with this meeting, and that they certainly did not dispatch Senators DeWine or Lindsey Graham over to the McCain meeting to cut the best possible deal on judges. Now, if you wonder: "Okay, well, who is this source, who is this senior Republican source?" Well, to find out who the senior Republican source is, it might be helpful to consult the transcript of the report on Fox last night -- and when you look at the transcript of the report, you see that Senator DeWine is portraying himself as having saved the president from a devastating defeat. Now, that's the opposite of what happened and we all know it. Senator DeWine took a win on the filibuster issue and messed it up, and apparently he's trying to rewrite history in order to deflect the heat. Krauthammer has a column today that echoes what many of us have been saying all week that's right on the money. So here's the relevant portion of the transcript of the report on Fox last night. Senator DeWine: "No one knows how to vote on the constitutional option would have come out. We might have won; we might have lost. If we lost, it would have been devastating for the president, devastating for the president when he tried to get a nominee up here for the Supreme Court. Everybody knew where we were coming from, and you know we insisted that this is what the deal had to be. It cleared the way for a lot of the president's agenda other than the judges to move forward, so I think, you know, we got a lot. We really didn't lose anything."

Yeah, of course you didn't lose anything, except the nominations of William Myers and Henry Saad, and maybe five other judges. It could be that only three of these ten will ever see the light of day. So DeWine is portraying himself as having saved the president from a devastating defeat here in the midst of a report that senior a Republican source says that Senators DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal. Now, there's other spin going on as well about all of this, but none of it is this. I mean, every version of spin is its own self-contained individual story with no relationship to any other story or no other link. What does this mean? It means that the signatories to the deal know that they messed up, and they're running for the tall grass now, and they're trying to make the blame shift from themselves to elsewhere, all the way from Frist knew he didn't have the votes and told the White House and the White House told us to get over there and make a deal, all the way to... Basically, at the root of it, I think all the spin is basically about how we were saving the president. We were doing what we could to save this because it was going to do down in a humiliating defeat, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da -- and of course what's wrong with this spin, aside from the fact that it's spin -- and what's caused the spin to take place is the Bolton business.

"Did you see what Lindsey Graham said about the Bolton filibuster? 'Well, this is what's disappointing. The spirit of the deal was that we can do better if we all try.' I don't need to say anymore, folks."

Two things have caused the spinning to start: the Bolton business and the outcry, the outrage of anger and protest emanating from the Republican base. The people that elected these people are furious. They are still furious. So the spin is related to both the Bolton -- because the Bolton episode yesterday, even though I will admit it's got nothing to do with the judge deal, it does have a linkage to the judge deal because one of the reasons for the deal was supposedly to "get the Senate back on track doing the people's business," blah, blah, blah, and it was also said that this is going to clear the way for Bolton. They said this would clear the way for Bolton, and look what happened! Bolton's being filibustered. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's not a filibuster. They're "delaying the vote." Shame on me, folks! I didn't adopt the correct media language. It is a filibuster! Anytime you have a cloture vote, which is what happened yesterday afternoon, anytime you have a cloture vote, you've got a filibuster going on. I don't care what the press calls it. The press will not use the word "filibuster" because the Democrats have some fear, too. The evidence is clear that they are filibustering and obstructing and stopping everything, but this was all predictable.

We know who the Democrats are. A Democrat is a Democrat. A liberal is a liberal. A tiger is a tiger. We knew what they were going to do. We knew that the deal emboldened them, and from what I'm hearing -- and who knows what's factual and what isn't -- from what I'm hearing, the Republicans had a deal, Frist had a deal with Dingy Harry that there would be the 60 votes to get cloture and move on and vote on Bolton. They thought they had so many more than 60 votes they let Specter leave early. Specter, you know, is undergoing chemotherapy for lymph node cancer, something like that, and he left for his Pennsylvania home early before the vote yesterday, and they thought they had plenty of votes, enough to let Specter go early, that his vote wasn't needed. The assurance that Frist had from Dingy Harry himself, and of course Dingy Harry has now screwed Frist twice in one week. Frist has been shafted twice in one week, and you can't blame this all on Frist. I mean you can, maybe you can blame some of it, but let me give you -- I've been talking about LBJ and how he ran the Senate with an iron fist when he was in the Senate and did so at least with his own party when he was president.

RUSH: All right. We have a montage of DeWine, Senator Mike DeWine on the Fox report that I was talking about at the beginning of the show last night. Let me set this up. This is a show on Fox, Brit Hume show top of the hour last night at 6. It's a Major Garrett report that he was told by senior Republican sources that Senators DeWine and Lindsey Graham were dispatched by Senator Frist and the White House to cut the best deal possible on judges, and I said, "Well now, if that's true, that's one of the biggest news breaks and stories in the world," and I dug deep today, and I have assured myself that this is so far from the truth that it doesn't even deserve speculation. So in that case, okay, well, who's the source? Who are the senior Republican sources for this? And we've put together a montage of Senator DeWine in the Major Garrett story yesterday and this is it.

DeWINE: No one knows how the vote on the constitutional option would have come out. We might have won. We might have lost. If we lost, it would have been devastating for the president. Devastating for the president when he tried to get a nominee up here for the Supreme Court. Everybody knew where we were coming from, and, you know, we insisted that this is what the deal had to be. It cleared the way for a lot of the president's agenda other than judges to move forward, so I think we got a lot, and we really didn't lose anything.

RUSH: Now, aside from the substance of this, you hear in this bite that DeWine openly suggests, or should I say references the possibility that the vote would be lost, that Frist didn't have the votes, and they had to go over there and make the best deal possible. So when you couple that with this report from Major Garrett -- and I'm not ripping Major Garrett so please, don't anybody call Fox. I'm trying to figure out who this source is that told him that DeWine and Graham were dispatched by Frist and the White House to cut the best possible deal, because that's huge spin. You know, that's huge, and it sounds like that's what DeWine is saying happened, and he doesn't mention Frist or the White House, but he said they had to go in there and make the best deal we could. Now the Senate is going to move on. The Bolton vote last night is evidence that that's not true, that the president got his agenda going. I don't know what these guys are thinking. Are the Democrats just going to announce, "oh, wow, okay, let's go pass Social Security, Mr. President"? I clearly do not understand where these guys are coming from, but there's no party discipline. That's for sure.

RUSH: Laura Lynn in Cincinnati, nice to have you on the program. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Appreciate you taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: You know, another consequence of DeWine's betrayal here with the filibuster matter is the effect that it's had on his son's campaign. His son is running here in the second Congressional district trying to fill the very big shoes left open by Rob Portman, and I'll tell you, the dialogue around our community at least is, you know, he uses the name, he uses dad's money, he's got the political machine behind him that pushed him to the forefront, and, you know, it just leads us to believe that we're going to get the same nonsense in the House as we have in the Senate, and I think it's really hurt his campaign here.

RUSH: I've seen speculation that that might be the case. Your phone call kind of adds impetus to the notion that it could. We'll just have to wait and see. This is something that's not going to be known until election day, but clearly it's something that Senator DeWine will hear himself, and will give thought to. But look, it's too late. You know, look, my friends, I hate to sound like a broken record on this. They make the deal when? On Monday. On Monday night they're all praising themselves as independent mavericks, right? They're doing the best thing for the country. They saved the country. They "saved the republic." They saved the Senate, and now we can get back to doing business in the Senate. "Kids are dying in Iraq." Okay. The deal falls apart. Now, make no mistake it's fallen apart. This comity and the goodwill that was supposed to come out of this meeting was officially slam-dunked yesterday in a Bolton filibuster. Now, isn't it interesting that all of these participants -- and let's just stick with the Republican side on this, because it wouldn't have happened without them, all right? All the Republican participants said, "We acted independently. We did what is best for our country. We're not really moderates. We're not this, we're not that. We just did what's best for the country. We saved the Senate! Comity, staid tradition in the Senate. Protecting the rights of the minority. We need to make sure that we can get back to doing the nation's business. Kids are dying in Iraq. We got to go back and work on Social Security."

Okay. Then the deal falls apart, and they're all blaming everybody else for the deal. "Well, the White House set us up. The White House and Frist, they knew they didn't have the votes. We had to go up there; we had to try to save the day." Isn't it interesting when the deal first gets announced... Somebody in the press or in one of the blogs somewhere had a great characterization of all these Republicans not even able to go to sleep Monday night in anticipation of their profiles in the Washington Post style section on Tuesday. So they get up like it's Christmas morning, looking for their great profiles to show how independent they are, then the deal goes south and now it's everybody else's fault, and some are saying, "You know, we're surprised. We're saddened. We're saddened and surprised that this happened." Some of them are saying that, talking about the breakdown here of civility in the Bolton circumstance.

[Babu]

I don't agree with Rush on this one, but neither would I expect him to give the Dems red meat. He's pretty much forced to defend the GOP.

Whoa, Back the bus up. Begging to differ -- Rush never feels forced to defend the GOP. He hammers them pretty regularly when they do things which are dumb, inept, or are just doing nothing when they should act.

[mountainfolk]

I want to believe your scenario because it makes sense and promises eventual victory for the Republicans. However, we have been watching this circus for months now and maybe the game has been played past the gain to be had. Perception of weakness of the Republican leaders is becoming ingrained in friend and foe and will remain long after this situation is resolved. Also, there is unfortunately, a history of Republican faithful watching an unfolding set of circumstances, believing that it is all chess moves and the end will justify their belief and patience by a favorable outcome for them. Turns out, whatever the game was, if any, it was all wishful thinking. There is every reason for involved Republicans to over time become sensitized to political deja vue. I sincerely hope you are right and somewhere under this pile of excrement somebody actually is in charge and working a plan. We shall see.

[.30Carbine]

Well that's the difference between us: I don't believe anything solely on the basis that someone - any person - says it is so, especially when the information itself is illogical. I like to think things out for myself. I understand that not everyone likes to do that.

[SAWTEX]

Are you by chance a McCain supporter? The deal was stupid
pure and simple if you are looking at it from a conservative
point of reference. If on the other hand you are coming from a whats good for McCain point of reference why not
roll the dice which came up snakeyes in the end.

[Kenny Bunkport]

No, I'm not a McCain supporter. In fact, I detest the man. I'm just saying that I don't think it's plausible that Pres. Bush and Sen. Frist are so out of the loop.

[Kenny Bunkport]

Because ANYONE who is in the least bit politically savvy

Which excludes about two-thirds of the people on FreeRepublic, apparently. Make that about 99% who don't have a clue about what really probably happened behind the scenes. All I've seen here over the past four days is mainly spleen-venting.

[Kenny Bunkport]

But if they had voted with Frist, then Frist had the votes.

Not if Specter was a "no" vote. The Seven, minus DeWine and Graham, makes 50, minus Specter makes 49. According to the report on Fox, Specter was a solid "uncommitted" -- Frist didn't have even a solid 50. And losing on the nuclear option would have been more devastating that this deal.

[Zechariah11]

How many times must people misunderestimate W. The Dems have been snookered. Comity became comedy in less then 48 hours. Call it a Bolten of Lightening if you will but the DEMS are in trouble and don't seem to understand they are sitting in the back seat and W is driving.

Finally, a voice of reason amongst some of the most idiotic speculation and conspiracy charges ever. Some of these guys sound like John Birch Society nutcases! Remember when Bush was silent during the Democratic primaries in '04? Everyone kept urging him to play his cards. He didn't until the time was right. He'll get his judges and probably increase his Senate Majority in '06.

[altura]

I think you are so wedded to your idea of the situation, you can't deal with the truth.

[Zechariah11]

They were extremely p!ssed. Cunningham and Hannity are hoping the idea that Kasich will challenge DeWine will come to pass. They vow to Hannitize the state of Ohio for him.

[txrangerette]

Could Frist and the WH also be afraid that if the RINOs are punished, some of them might pull a Jim Jeffords? That would not surprise me.

[sirthomasthemore]

My friends, as most Freepers, I am a cultural conservative; I view myself as a populist. I am concerned that recent events demonstrate that the GOP is engaging in a charade; viz: they are talking the conservative talk, but not walking the walk. I realize compromise is, at times necessary; but please don’t play conservatives for fools.

We see by recent legislation, the GOP has done nothing to cut spending, by rather agreed to increase it. In the Terri Schindler situation, they passed emergency legislation, but then ran for cover. With Terri, the National Leadership made absolutely no effort to “flip” 4 of the 9 GOP dummies in the Florida Legislature, and Jeb-to the humiliation of us all- went wobbly before Judge Greer. Now, we have the capitulation on the subject agreement, where the gravamen of the issue was purportedly a very fundamental principled and constitutional stand, ie. that a presidential judicial nominee only requires 51 votes to confirm.

On May 23, I had an exchange with Freeper “Hotshu”where I suggested:

“This whole thing was a charade. All these speeches [CSPAN, 3 days] were just to give cover to those who wanted to play to the conservative base- you know, "shucks we tried". While all along, they knew that there was going to be a negotiated settlement.

It's repugnant. Yes, Frist caved, but did it go even farther than that? WH????

So, did Frist cave? Admittedly. In his recent floor speech, he said the following: “The moment of truth was to have come on May 24. But action was preempted by an agreement between seven Republicans and seven Democrats to forestall use of the Constitutional option in exchange for confirmation votes on several nominees and a promise that filibusters would only be maintained in extraordinary circumstances. I was not a party to that agreement nor was the Republican Leadership.”

He then concluded:

“If filibusters again erupt under circumstances other than extraordinary , we will put the Constitutional option back on the table and move to implement it. “

By his acceptance of the filibuster in “extraordinary circumstances”, he acceded to the agreement. I don’t see how that is not the import of his exact words.

Had he said, “14 senators have entered an agreement, which I was not a party to and I do not recognize as valid and binding of the Senate, and therefore I will move to end debate on any filibuster of judicial nominees”- he would have remained steadfast and consistent with his own principles and beliefs.

But, he didn’t.

A majority leader of 55 senators may well be hamstrung by the act of 7. But, as a majority leader, he should never tolerate this attack of his power, never openly admit he is powerless to counteract this assault of his authority, and by no means, should he affirmatively acquiesce to the will of those who have so publicly abused him.

Unless, of course, the agreement is what he wanted all along- which seems to be the case.

Which brings us to the White House. GWB as a 55 member majority in the Senate. As above, a President cannot allow such a demonstrable, public affront to his power, he cannot appear powerless to counteract the assault of his authority, and he cannot acquiesce to the will of those who have so publicly abused him. Has this happened? Yes. Harry Reid made just that point of the floor of the Senate where he stated that the President had been put in his place, and here forward, he would be compelled to seek the advice of Dems before nominating someone for the judiciary.

What do we hear from the White House. Nothing. Silence. As my posting name sake said, “the maxim of the law is “qui tacet consentire”- silence is consent. When we hear nothing from the White House, we must then assume consent,

Now, it is very likely that GWB felt that it was better to negotiate a deal, then to undergo the potential political fallout should the GOP had passed the constitutional option and the Dems then followed through on their threat to shut down the senate. As Mister Baredog indicates in his post above, “Republicans must be careful, they're held to a double standard”- presumably by the media.

GWB may have felt it wasn’t worth the risk.

If that was the President’s judgment, that’s his right. I have great respect for his political instincts. However, cultural conservatives overwhelmingly stood behind this Senate and this President. Ridding ourselves of activist judges was likely are foremost goal and reason for supporting the GOP.

I speak for myself, but I presume I speak for many others when I say, the appointment of strict constructionists is non-negotiable. I think in exchange for our support, there should be no negotiated deals with the DEMS on transcendent issues, which command party loyalty. To the extent that either Frist or the WH say they are a non-complice, I don’t believe that it’s asking to much to see some manifestation of an OVERT effort to destroy this moderate coalition-and to make that known to the base. After all, WE suffer the humiliation and aggrievement of this Agreement; we have a right to know that our Votes and Money turn into policy. And to the extent its not done, I don’t believe its unreasonable to assume the alleged complicity by the GOP leadership.

Consider, why would Rush spend this time attempting to discredit this report. Perhaps it hit a raw nerve??? .

[Zechariah11]

I'm just saying that I don't think it's plausible that Pres. Bush and Sen. Frist are so out of the loop.

Do you think that any of the Seven would care to share with either Frist or Bush. Their act of treachery speaks for itself.

[sirthomasthemore]

txrangerette

Could be; but then let them go the way of Jeffords. They're no help to us if they refuse their loyalty to the GOP on the issue of activist judges. If they won't support is on this principled issue, when can we count on their support?

[PMCarey]

Not if Specter was a "no" vote.

Then why not have Specter be part of Gang of Seven? That's why this story doesn't work unless you think that Graham/DeWine are also "no" votes, but they say they're not.

[blam]

Looks like De Wine has been caught lying in public...I saw him say that this was ok'd by Bush.

[Babu]

Well that's the difference between us: I don't believe anything solely on the basis that someone - any person - says it is so, especially when the information itself is illogical. I like to think things out for myself. I understand that not everyone likes to do that.

I presume you're familiar with the term "trusted sources". Many people have a few "people they trust" and/or "trusted sources". I have very few, but Rush is on that very short list for me, due to many many years of experience. That however, does NOT mean I do not think for myself.

I think a combination of trusted sources and intuitive thought is the ideal combination. If one has no "trusted sources" other than ones own five senses, then I guess one must go to Washington to see and hear all ones own political news, but I don't personally know anyone who has the time or money for that.

[nopardons]

Whilst you and those on your side have done nothing but spin,spin,SPIN. And no, there are more politically savvy people here that you assume...but your side has been yelling over them.

[nopardons]

Exactly.

[nopardons]

What part of THE COMPROMISE AND MEMO ONLY COVERED JUDICIAL NOMINEES, don't you get?

BOLTON HAS LESS THAN NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE COMPROMISE AND MEMO!