Diane Rehm Show partial transcript

I was wrong about Senator Hutchison's remarks. Conservative Iraqi guerillas are not monsters, she said that they're animals.

At the 36:20 mark of the archived Nov. 9th Diane Rehm Show:

Diane Rehm:
Let's go first to St Augustine, Florida. Good morning David, you're on the air.

Caller (David):
Good morning Diane and Kay, how are you doing today?

Diane Rehm and Republican Texas Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison:
Fine, thank you.

Caller (David):
Good. I find it a bit both hypocritical and absurd that so many people claim a moral high ground in voting for George W Bush. I don't see how there's any morality for the U.S. to go into a country disingenuously, as we are in Iraq, and kill one hundred thousand innocent civilians. I've been a student of the Bible some of my life, in my college days, and I don't remember Jesus or anywhere in the New Testament it saying anything about disenfranchising gay people, that poor women should die in back-alley abortions, or that the rich should acquire wealth at the expense of poor and working people. In fact, Jesus said exactly the opposite.

Diane Rehm:
Alright, sir, thanks for your call. Senator?

Republican Texas Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison:
Well, first of all, I think that the president's economic policies, about which you referred in that last part of your comment, was meant to create jobs for people, and the tax cuts done that. The stock market has solidified, which has created more jobs for people, created more capability for us to increase the jobs that we in many ways lost after nine eleven. Secondly, America hasn't killed a hundred thousand people in Iraq. The insurgents are brutal animals. They are people who have shot the Iraqi police recruits cold-bloodedly in the head. They're people who have chopped peoples' heads off in front of a video camera. Terrorists have shot children in the back, in Russia, as they are running away from them to safety. And, so, I think that what the president is trying to do is protect America from these people who would come to our country and commit these atrocities here. And, so, I think he is committed to that, and I don't think that anyone is claiming moral superiority, but I do think the president is doing everything he can to protect American citizens.