Rush: Don't Apologize, Senator Durbin - You've Told Us Who Democrats Really Are

RUSH: Let's go ahead and listen to Senator Durbin again. You need to hear this. We got the audio for this in the final hour of the program yesterday, and just in that period of time – as we always say, "show prep for the rest of the media." It was all over the place last night, websites and all over, people are outraged. Durbin's office is being swamped with phone calls. We had phone calls on this program after the audio aired. People are just livid, and particularly the parents of soldiers serving in the United States, either in Afghanistan or in Iraq. Hear it for yourself if you haven't. We have two sound bites. They both go together. So, Mike, I want you to run these both together, one's 37 seconds; the other is 31, but play them back-to-back. Here we go.

DURBIN: 'On one occasion the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. On another occasion the air conditioner had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.'

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

RUSH: I'm going to tell you, Senator Durbin. There's not a soul in this country who would have heard what this FBI agent said and associated it with anything done by the Nazis, the Soviets and their gulags, or Pol Pot.

Turning the air-conditioning off and on, rap music, none of this would anybody associate with what went on in death camps, senator. Not one person -- except you.

You make this association which makes us question just how much you know of the enemy we're currently fighting and how much you know of what actually went on in Cambodia and in the Nazi death camps and the Soviet gulags.

"Senator Durbin refused to apologize Wednesday for comments he made on the Senate floor... News of the comparison created a buzz on the Internet Wednesday, fueled by sound bites of the senator's speech on radio talk shows like Rush Limbaugh's. By Wednesday afternoon, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna asked Durbin to apologize. 'Sen. Durbin's comments come as a great disservice to our military personnel in Guantanamo,' McKenna said in a statement. 'They are also a great disservice to all U.S. soldiers and veterans who have fought, and continue to fight, to overcome evil regimes and spread democracy around the world.'"

Durbin's spokesman said "Durbin did not plan to apologize for the comments." In fact, Durbin said on Wednesday, "'This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure.' Staffers at the senator's office took an increased number of calls Wednesday as word of the comments spread.

"'I wouldn't say we were inundated, but we knew Rush mentioned it because that's when the calls started coming in,'" said Durbin's spokesman. "He later added that Durbin's comments were meant to compare torture at Guantanamo Bay to torture during the Nazi regime, not equate Americans at the base to Nazis and similar groups."

That's just a cop-out. I don't even need to comment on that. That's just silly. "I didn't mean to compare them to Nazis in the death camps. I was talking about torture." What do you think they were doing? What do you call the death camps, if that wasn't torture? They didn't kill them immediately, for crying out loud, senator!

Go talk to some US POWs still alive from World War II who were in those prison camps and ask them what happened to them. It wouldn't be too hard to do. You guys have such great respect for the greatest generation. The greatest generation is humiliated by this, senator. The Greatest Generation is embarrassed by you. The Greatest Generation, you're making them fear for the future of the country, those that are still alive. You're causing other people to question your own fitness to be a leader of the United States Senate in this country.

Let me take a break because, you know, we've had McCain and Specter and a number of other pointy-heads demanding that we give trials in the American judicial system to these prisoners of war, and I want to take you back to a Supreme Court decision from 1950 to put that in perspective.

RUSH: By the way, folks, I don't want Durbin to apologize, and if he does apologize it's not going to mean anything to me.

He ought to stand by this because he means it. This is one time a liberal is telling you who they really are.

This is another example of a liberal being honest about what they really think of the US military and what they really think of this country. That's the value of Dick Durbin. Dick Durbin is telling everybody who the Democrats today really are. He's identifying all of them. He does speak for Harry Reid. He does speak for Joe Biden. He does speak for Ted Kennedy. He does speak for John Kerry. He does speak for Hillary Clinton.

He speaks for all of them. None of them are trying to get away from what he said. None of them are asking him to apologize. None of them are distancing themselves.

This is who they are. It is what people like me have been trying to tell you for many, many moons now, and it doesn't get any better than hearing it from the horse's mouth.

Dick Durbin has just identified who the Democrats are in the year 2005, particularly when it comes to American national security and when it comes to the US military.

These are the same people they say they support the troops. This is how they do it, huh? They give aid and comfort to the enemy. They make it possible for Mullah Omar and bin Laden, whoever else is out there still alive, to laugh themselves silly at us. Mogadishu all over.

So, bammo! Here you go, Dick Durbin. Thanks once again for telling our enemies just what a bunch of soft patty cakes we are and how we'll back away from our own treatment of people much less back away from dishing it out to people like our enemies. It's a sight to behold.

I want you to hear Jeff Sessions, the Senator from Alabama. He got in on this and he has been fabulous on the G'itmo stuff. He hammered the Democrats. He was on Fox and Friends this morning, and the question, "Senator Sessions, member of the judiciary committee, I'd love to hear you weigh in on this. Is G'itmo serving its purpose or is it harming us so much by bad PR that it needs to be shut down?"

SESSIONS:"What is happening that's so wrong and so upsetting to me is that we've got senators and congressmen and other people suggesting that we have wholesale violation of human rights at these prisoners, and it's not so. Two hundred of these 500 prisoners have cases pending in federal court, they've had multiple hearings to determine whether or not they should be kept there, they're being treated humanely, and it's wrong for us to send the message around the world from our own members of Congress that they are being abused on a regular basis.

It just makes it tougher for our soldiers who are trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq and around the world and to convince the people there that we're trying to do right."

RUSH: I've been thinking about this during the Sessions sound bite. I don't want Senator Durbin to apologize because it wouldn't be honest. If he apologizes, I wouldn't accept it.

I like Senator Durbin saying what he said but I also think he should resign. This is the kind of thing that ought to force him to resign in disgrace.

We don't need this kind of obstacle in the United States Senate as the number two man, he's the whip, number two whip, whip or whatever, number two whip underneath Dingy Harry.

All right, now Sessions zeros in on Durbin. He got the question from the host, E. D. Hill. "I wanted to ask you about the comments made by Durbin, representative Senator Durbin of Illinois, he compared what happened at G'itmo to the gulags to Pol Pot, to Hitler. It was incredible. What was your reaction when you heard that?"

SESSIONS: Well, it really upset me because this Congress has sent over a hundred thousand American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out the policies of the United States of America. First of all, what he said is not true. It's utterly false. Millions died under Hitler, millions died under Pol Pot, millions died under the communist regime, the Gulag Archipelago.

And not one has died in G'itmo, not one has died there. They've been given the best medical treatment that the world can provide."

RUSH: And the best food and air-conditioning. You think there was air-conditioning in Cambodia? Air-conditioning in Vietnam for our prisoners of war? To be turned on or off, was it even there? It was not. So the next question to Senator Sessions. "So why would an American senator say something that's false?"

SESSIONS: "I just think that people are losing their perspective. We're all caught up in some domestic politics, maybe they want to embarrass the president, and they make these statements sometimes hopefully they're just not recognizing how serious the consequences are worldwide."

RUSH: Oh, I think they know. The real irony here is that they think what we're doing at G'itmo is the serious consequences. It's what they're saying that are posing the serious consequences.

I mean, all this garbage about what's going on at G'itmo anyway. Look at what one erroneous story from Newsweek has led us to. One error in Newsweek about what they were supposedly doing to the Koran is what's led us to this, close down G'itmo. Do we really want our security left to the likes of people like Dick Durbin or any of these political hacks who manage to get elected to high office like Durbin like Kennedy like Specter.

What do they know? They're trained to be lawyers and not necessarily good ones, by the way. So nearly their entire focus is on whether terrorists should be treated like shoplifters. They don't acknowledge or accept the existence of a military justice system, which applies to the enemy, not a civilian justice system.

This is as old as the nation's founding. They do not accept that the purpose of detaining these people is to protect our troops and our neighborhoods, to get information out of them. And, by the way, this sordid, horrible treatment with the air-conditioning off and on and the rap music, we got information from the 20th hijacker. It worked! But Durbin and Specter and Kennedy and the likes act like after three years of war that these prisoners have some right to be released. How long you going to hold these people, forever, they ask.

Yeah, we'll hold them as long as they're a threat just as we hold criminals for life, for crying out loud. We held prisoners of war in previous wars for the duration of the war, then you make deals for their release, for crying out loud. We don't try illegal enemy combatants, let alone prisoners of war. We do not do this, and we never have, and what of all the focus on these illegal enemy combatants?

There are thousands of POWs being held who are not illegal enemy combatants. Why aren't the leftists demanding that they get lawyers, that they be brought to the US for trial, et cetera?

And I'll tell you why: because it will become obvious how absurd this entire argument is. We cannot give thousands of POWs lawyers, have them clog up the courts with claims of improper incarceration or treatment, so it's much easier for the left to focus on these 530.

But there are other prisoners; why not bring the people from Abu Ghraib over and give them trials? Why not get the prisoners in Bagram Air Force Base over in Afghanistan, bring them over for trials? We have prisons all over the world, and there are Islamic terrorists in prisons of other countries.

Why not go get them and assume they're all being mistreated, bring them back to the United States for trials?

Yeah, the Marines who are guarding them, turn them over to who? The US Marshals? Are they trained in the proper handling of terrorists? I have more on this, but I've got to take a break, EIB obscene profit center time.

RUSH: Guess what I just found? On the al-Jazeera website, ladies and gentlemen, not just praise for Durbin, they rehash the whole AP story. They repeat practically the whole AP story and they praise Durbin for saying what he's saying and for being honest. They praise Durbin for not apologizing.

Way to go, Senator Durbin! Al-Jazeera loves you, Senator Durbin, probably more than the people that voted for you in Illinois could ever love you.

Al-Jazeera! I would be embarrassed, were al-Jazeera to take my words, blast them all over the Middle East to their audience as a means of amplifying opposition to the United States of America.

So, in addition to all the horrors that we are visiting on our prisoners like Pol Pot and Nazism and the gulags of the Soviet Union. McCain and his ilk are saying we need to put these people through our justice system, we need to give them trials.

Yeah, like I say, the Marines who are guarding them now will turn them over to whom? The US marshals? Are they trained in the proper handling of terrorists? Who's going to prosecute all of these 530 people down there, US attorneys? Has anybody gone to the US attorneys and asked them if it's a good idea, if they've got time, to go make cases?

Does McCain believe that all the due-process rights afforded US citizens should be applied to terrorists? If not, which rights should be excluded? And if you exclude some, are you not denying the terrorist his right to a fair trial? And if they get convicted, where do we put them then, where do we house them? In our already overcrowded federal prison system?

Anybody ask the federal bureau of prisons what kind of havoc that would create for the ability to keep control over their prison population to bring in a number of these 530 POWs from G'itmo, and what of the possibility that these terrorists will try to recruit news terrorists from the general prison population?

We know that goes on in prison. Has McCain considered that that might happen? It would be a great recruitment tool to put the prisoners at G'itmo into the US federal penitentiary system. But if we are as Durbin says no better than the Nazis or the Stalinists or Pol Pot, why do we care?

I just have a simple question for you, Senator Durbin. If we're no better than the Nazis, if we're no better than the Stalinists and their gulags and Pol Pot, why do we care? Why do we even feed these prisoners? Why do we give them Korans? Why do we give them air-conditioning? Why do we give them all that we give them, such as access to outside groups? In fact, why are they still alive, senator? If we are no different than Pol Pot, the Soviet gulags, and the Nazis, why are they still alive? Why are you calling G'itmo a death camp when there hasn't been a death at G'itmo?

As I say, it is literally amazing what one little fabricated story in Newsweek by Michael Isikoff can ignite.

Folks, if you want to know how the left-wing propaganda mill works, this is it. This is precisely how the left-wing propaganda mill works. Put a little feeler out there that's not even accurate about the Koran, then have Newsweek take a big hit for putting something out there that's erroneous.

The left-wing media says, "You can't attack our guys like that!" And they circle the wagons and they begin a death watch on G'itmo. They search for anything they can find to show that G'itmo is hell on earth, and this is where we end up -- and this is how the left does it, whoever their target is. Be it in the criminal justice system, be it in American politics, be it in a time of war. Identify a target. Leak a bunch of garbage that's not true. Have your willing accomplices in the press lap it up, suck it up, and regurgitate it.

Create public opinion that leads to a PR crisis that then says, "Ooh, we have to do something about this," when a non-story or total fabrication was the impetus for the whole thing. Now, the following is from the 1950 Supreme Court decision Johnson vs. Eisentrager. This is the Supreme Court writing in its decision, 1950. "We are cited to no instance where a court in this or any other country, where the writ of habeas corpus is known, has issued it on behalf of an alien enemy who at no relevant time and in no stage of his captivity has been within its territorial jurisdiction. It is war that exposes the relative vulnerability of the alien status, the security and protection enjoyed while the nation of his allegiance remains in enmity with the United States are greatly impaired when his nation takes up arm against us. While his lot is far more humane and endurable than the experience of our citizens in such enemy lands, it is still not a happy one, but disabilities that this country lays upon the alien who becomes also an enemy are imposed temporarily as an incident of war and not as an incident of alienage." In other words, 55 years ago, and several years after the end of World War II, the US Supreme Court recognized that illegal enemy combatants -- in this case, it was about 21 German nationals -- didn't even have a right to access a civilian court in the US. The US Supreme Court found this in 1950.

That all changed last summer, folks, when the current Supreme Court in essence reversed course, holding that they do have a right to a hearing, prisoners of war, do have a right to a hearing and a lawyer, and since that ruling last summer, the dogs of anti-war have been unleashed with demands that the Bill of Rights apply to these prisoners and even that they be brought into our own country for trial.

That's why we're where we are in all of this. There was a time in history when those who betrayed their country were drawn and quartered, or even later they were tarred and feathered.

In more civilized times, one who betrayed his country is given a choice, pistols or swords. But now betrayal is greeted with a yawn. And that's exactly what I mean, betrayal. What Senator Durbin said, comparing our country and our military and our leadership to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, in a pure dictionary sense was not treason, but it almost certainly was betrayal, disloyalty to one's own country.

Well, no. What Jane Fonda, what Hanoi Jane said, that was free speech. In a democracy, anybody has a right to say anything they believe no matter how stupid or misguided. But Dick Durbin's not as stupid as Hanoi Jane, or he might be. He has to know what he said was not true. That's not free speech, and that's not low-down, dirty politics. It's something far worse. It's betrayal. It's treachery. It's duplicity what he did. It may be free speech but it doesn't change the fact that it's betrayal. Durbin's spokesman or whoever, says he won't apologize, and I don't want him to.

Durbin, like Harry Reid and Howard Dean, are the voices of today's Democratic Party in what are hopefully the last days of the Democratic Party. This is who they are, ladies and gentlemen. They have made it clear now exactly who they are when it comes to this country and its military. Oh, yes, these are the same people that say they support the troops, as some would say, rubbish, bull hockey. This is not support for the troops.

No, you can't. That's a favorite liberal refrain but it fails in quicksand. But this isn't even support of the troop. Not when al-Jazeera takes the comments and the story and blasts it all over the Middle East and supports it. Let's grab a phone call quickly here before we have to go to the break we'll go to Beaufort, South Carolina, and Emily, hello, and welcome to the program. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Well, I told your call screener I would love Senator Durbin to come down. He can even stay at my house; I'll show him that kind of hospitality. We need to get together with all the Marines in Beaufort, includes Parris Island and the air station, and have him tell the Marines what exactly is happening at G'itmo. I would love to invite him to come down here and have a town hall meeting with us in Beaufort.

RUSH: Well, he'd probably do it. He's stuck now. He would probably do it. I don't expect him to back off of this. I think this is how they think they score points. This is how they think they gain ground. Folks, you have to understand what they're doing. Durbin thinks this is good for his party. Durbin thinks this is going to help his party win back the White House. Durbin thinks this is going to help his party win back the Senate. He would say this. He's not apologizing for it now. He'll say it again and again and again, because his real target, as far as Dick Durbin's concerned, the really enemy, is George W. Bush.

Free Republic Opinion Poll: Senator Durbin's comparison of US troops to Pol Pot's regime, Nazis and Stalin's Gulag is: http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll?poll=104;results=2

Rush: "Read the Articles...:"

(Washington Times: Gitmo called death camp) http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050616-121815-1827r.htm

(FoxNews: Durbin Backs Gitmo Remarks) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159748,00.html

(WSJ: Sen. Dick Durbin likens American soldiers to Nazis) http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006823

(TIME: Inside The Interrogation Of Detainee 063) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1071284,00.html

(NewsMax.com: Sen. Durbin: Gitmo GI's Behaved Like 'Nazis') http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/6/15/214234.shtml

(AS: Next to conspiracists like Dick Durbin, Howard Dean looks sentient) http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8313

(Reuters: Guantanamo jailed gone back to 'battlefield'- U.S) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8799776&src=rss/topNews

Media Research Cyber Alert 10:55am EDT, Friday June 17, 2005 (Vol. Ten; No. 108)

1. Nets Tout Iraq Withdrawal Pushed by 4 U.S. Reps, But Skip Durbin ABC and CBS led Thursday night with how four backbench Members of Congress held a press conference to publicize their resolution calling for a draw down of troops in Iraq by October of 2006, but neither network uttered a word about Democratic Senator Dick Durbin's outlandish comparison of the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags" or Pol Pot. Only NBC reported Durbin's comparison, but that brief item aired only after Kelly O'Donnell touted the vision of "North Carolina Republican Walter Jones, who today alongside two Democrats and a fellow Republican, proposed what many Americans, weary of the violence in Iraq, appear increasingly eager to see, a withdrawal date for U.S. troops." On ABC, anchor Elizabeth Vargas announced: "We start tonight with the Bush administration and the growing discontent over the war in Iraq. On Capitol Hill today, a resolution was introduced that would require U.S. troops to begin pulling out of Iraq a year from this fall. The resolution was sponsored by a small, bipartisan group of Congressmen, but it is a first."

2. Morning Shows Ignore Durbin, Today Hits Frist But Cues Up Clinton Senators Bill Frist and Hillary Clinton made the rounds of the morning shows Thursday to publicize their bill on medical privacy guidelines for hospitals, but none of the ABC, CBS or NBC interviewers took advantage of the opportunity to bring up Dick Durbin's allegation (see item #1 above). On CBS, Julie Chen highlighted how "Republican Congressman Walter Jones once supported the war but today he'll join a group of lawmakers calling for a firm date to withdraw U.S. forces." NBC's Matt Lauer posed a tough question to Frist about how the Terri Schiavo autopsy disproved his claim that "'she does respond,' end quote. Were you wrong in your diagnosis?" But he then cued up Clinton with how Senator Leahy says Guantanamo should be closed and asked: "Does Guantanamo serve a purpose or is it a black-eye for the United States?"

"These libs are unAmerican.."

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. "For the traitor appears not a traitor – he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero 42 B.C

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Dick Durban's Middle Name: HEAD