Rush Limbaugh says:

The Legacy of Compassionate Conservatism

December 10, 2003


The mainstream media is protected from the campaign finance law. Yes,
Congress has limited the right to free speech of "We the People," but left
the media's power intact. In fact, it's actually enhanced the media's power
by letting them dominate the airwaves 30 to 60 days before an election.

But let me ask you a simple question: "If the Supreme Court can limit free
speech today - under, I cannot believe, a GOP president, House and Senate -
why can't it limit freedom of the press tomorrow? Once you amend the
Constitution this way, anything goes!

Those who don't respect liberty - and by that I mean the left, these phony
political reformers, most editorial pages and five Supreme Court justices -
can't have it both ways. If the Constitution can be amended on the fly like
this rather than through the 3/4ths majority in both houses of Congress and
the states, then no aspect of the Constitution is safe from this kind of
manipulation. All it's going to take is somebody in Congress to write a law
saying, "We're going to put some regulations and restrictions on the
broadcast and print media," and bingo...



Will that ever happen? No. The Congress is afraid of the media, but they are
not afraid of you. Thus they felt free to pass a law taking away your most
basic freedom: political speech. Why? What did you do wrong? Why, you
corrupted the process! Yes, the way this ruling came down and the way the
law was written, your rotten, dirty money is corrupting out courageous and
brave elected officials. Why, as soon as they take a dime, they turn from
angels into corrupt monsters! You're ruining their morals! So if you try to
buy an ad, well, now there's a law to stop you rotten jerks!

I took some calls on this story, which you can hear below. These came from
the same sort of people who were so sure Bush would veto the bill, or that
the Supreme Court would overturn it, "So why fight it?" Frank in Auburn,
Maine asked, "How long do you think it's going to be before we have a
midnight session to overturn this in the Congress?" I gently told Frank that
the very Congress that passed this abomination, and that is now insulated as
incumbents from the annoying voices of you idiot voters, is not going to now
right what it did. Hello?

They're overjoyed about this! So is the media - which debunks another
caller's claim that the press would miss the ad revenue they'll lose from
political ads. They'll still get the cash from all these other groups who've
weaseled out of this law. This is worthy of more than a "whine," folks.
After all, members of the House and Senate can easily get face time on TV.
That's why I called this the "Incumbent Protection Act." This is a day of
darkness, folks. We may as well be Hobbits, with dark cloaked figures
looking for our rings.

Michael Barone, a brilliant guy, wrote the other day that this president is
redefining conservatism from limited government to a government of choice
and accountability. I disagreed with Mr. Barone for the first time in my
life about something. Not only are we not advancing limited government, we
are now limiting choice and accountability by restricting freedom of speech.
We're not expanding anything that's conservative, here. We're not expanding
liberty or expanding freedom - which is choice. That is the antithesis of
what happened in the Supreme Court.

When all is said and done, when it comes to domestic issues, it looks to me
like the legacy of the Republican control of Congress and the presidency for
the first time in 50 years is going to be the largest entitlement in modern
times, the greatest increase in domestic spending in modern times and one of
the greatest set-backs for liberty in modern times. That's the legacy of
Republican control of government. This may be "compassionate" conservatism,
but it's not "conservatism" at all.