February 16, 1999

[Partial transcript]

Dr. Keyes: What's THE GOOD NEWS today?

Well, I'm coming off a good weekend. I spent a better part of my weekend in Iowa wandering about, and had several meetings there in different parts of the state. Good crowds that we drew. And what was fascinating, I spent part of the time in my talks addressing the vote that had taken place on Friday, and making the point that in truth the Senate did not exonerate Bill Clinton, 'cause we all know he's guilty. They perjured themselves.

And we learned a lot, of course, about the Democrats in the course of all of this--a party without a heart of principle or respect for law or anything else, which, because of that lack of a sense of principle, now I think poses a deep threat to our future as a free people. The Democrat Party has announced itself as the potential instrument of anybody who would want to serve their political agenda at the expense of law and Constitution. A party that is willing to throw aside respect for the Constitution and the constraints of law in order to pursue their policy agenda is a party that has adopted the kind of "ends justifies the means" approach that characterized the communist parties in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union--and such a party is potentially an instrument of deep repression.

And we need to, I think, be wary of that. They have allowed themselves to be complicit in the campaign of political thuggery, intimidation, blackmail and character assassination that has characterized the last several months. They have now kowtowed to the criminal element in their party, though openly acknowledging its criminality, and have entertained the arguments made by Dershowitz and others, "the President's above the law." Some of them even argue that if he committed murder, he wouldn't be impeachable. All of this making it clear that we now have a Democrat Party that has done more than just over the years surrender to moral relativism, it has surrendered to that total abdication of moral concern which then says that so long as you succeed at doing what we want done, we don't care how you do it. And in a nation that's supposed to be based on Constitutionalism and the rule of law, that is a party that is a danger, indeed.

We also learned a good deal about some Republicans over the course of the last little while. We learned about the courage and integrity of a lot of the Republicans in the House who withstood the pressures of political thuggery, character assassination, blackmail and intimidation to do the right thing. And we learned, sadly, about the depth of political cowardice in the Senate leadership. They bent over backwards in order to be unfair to the House Advisors, to have a sham trial. And then finally, at the end of the day, we separated some Senators with great integrity, those who voted in favor of the Articles of Impeachment, notwithstanding polls and political intimidation, and that ten, that list of ten Senators who decided to go along with the Democrats on one or the other of the articles, including five, the five who voted against both articles--who, as it turned out, are the five most hard-core pro-abortion Republicans in the Senate of the United States. Do you think that's an accident? 'Cause I don't.

Having embraced the lie, they supported the liar. The lie, of course, being that lie which turns its back on even the fundamental notion of truth in order to embrace the abortion doctrine and throw away the fundamental principles of self-evident truth that our country was based upon.

Those who embrace that abortion doctrine have already announced their surrender of moral judgment. And I think that the Republicans, the five of them who voted against both articles in the face of facts and evidence and everything else, simply announced that, "Okay, we are thoroughly corrupted. We are, in effect," and I think this is the truth, "people who embrace the destruction of moral judgment that now dominates the Democrat Party. We wear our Republican label, but in fact we have the heart or heartlessness in moral terms, that now characterizes the Democrats." That's what those Republicans announced.

And I will be making the point repeatedly over the next little while that it is quite clear now that your stand on abortion is a good litmus test of your moral judgment and integrity. When the chips were down, when it mattered on this most historic vote that you stand for law and decency, the pro-abortion Republicans in the Senate of the United States threw it all away. And I think that's a pretty good indication. The pro-abortion Republicans can't be trusted, and therefore I say again what I have said in the past. A pro-abortion candidate will not get my vote ever again. And anybody who's willing to countenance that, I think, is announcing that they are indifferent to the moral future of our nation. It's one of the reasons that from now on I'm gonna have one question that I will be putting to all and sundry.

It actually came up--not this weekend, but the weekend before last. I was in New Hampshire the weekend before last. Isn't that peculiar? Weekend before last in New Hampshire, last weekend in Iowa. What on earth am I doing? I don't know. Anyway, (chuckling) I was in New Hampshire weekend before last. I was attending a Christian Coalition meeting, and they had a nice dinner and everything. And before I got up to speak, Steve Forbes was the speaker. And you know, Steve went in to campaign for Christy Todd-Whitman, and folks like myself criticized him a lot for it. He's been trying to make a bid to present himself as Mr. Moral Conservative. I don't buy it, other people don't buy it, but he's doing it anyway. I supposed we don't buy it, but he's able to buy a lot of things with all that money of his, so there are some people who are willing to buy it. Or maybe they're being bought, I don't know.

But in any case, it was a telling criticism that he went in to campaign for Christy Whitman, the big pro-abort who is a radical extremist, even accepts partial-birth infanticide. And in order to try to get out from under it, he's been making a joke of it, and of the fact that he had at one point said that she'd be on his short list of vice-presidential candidates. So he begins his speeches now by telling people that, "Well, Alan, you'd be on my short list, and so-and-so, you'd be on my short list, and so-and-so, you'd be on my short list, and you'd be on my short list, everybody's on my short list!"

"See, it doesn't mean anything when I say, 'you're on my short list for vice-president'"--that's what he's saying. And so when I got up, I turned it around a little bit, and I said, "You know how you can really tell the integrity of somebody? By who's not on their short list." And Christy Todd-Whitman and Mr. Giuliani and Pete Wilson and all these pro-aborts, they're not on my short list, and they will never be on my short list. And one of the reasons why they're not, and should not be on yours or anybody else's was proven in that vote on Friday. Because, if you are a pro-abortion Republican, then you're not going to be Republican when it counts, that's why. You can't be trusted, having embraced the lie, you will embrace the liars. And that's what happened last Friday.

So I think one of the things that may prove to be salutary that came out of this whole period is that it was a period of discernment. It was a period in which we saw some separation of the true from the false, and this is always useful in life, you know. And what we saw were the root of false Republicanism, the root of the false Republicans. And what is that root? It is the bitter root of the pro-abortion dogma. And those Republicans who draw on that bitter root for their policy positions can't be trusted when it counts, pure and simple.

And therefore I think it was no accident. The five who went south on BOTH of the Articles of Impeachment, the five Republicans who went wrong on both of them were solidly pro-abortion Republicans in the Senate of the United States. I want you to focus on that. I am going to be reminding you of it, and other people around the country of it from time to time, because it points the way to a truth. And it means that since we can't trust them, neither could we trust anybody who would be willing to put them on their short list, have 'em for a running mate, do anything else that they want with them. Can't be trusted.

And that's the question I put to Steve Forbes and everybody else. I want them to tell me before I'm gonna even entertain the thought of their sincerity, that they will not have these pro-abortion Republicans on their ticket. Do you think Steve Forbes is willing to say that? Put that question to him sometime. Put it to all of them, and see what they have to say, 'cause I think it's a great test of integrity on these fundamental issues, and I think that that was proven last Friday.

Let's go to a caller in Ottawa, Illinois. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Hi. Um, I have a comment, and see what you, if you agree with this or not. In my state of Illinois, our pro-life lobbyist Ralph Rivera has been trying to push a bill called "A Woman's Right to Know," in which the woman, if I remember all this, has been told about the alternatives, who should be showed ultrasounds, who will be told what the procedure is all about, and there's a waiting period of how many hours, or whatever.

Dr. Keyes: Yeah.

Caller: And I believe if all the states pushed this kind of bill, our abortion rate is going to be going down.

Dr. Keyes: I think you're right. I think that the more knowledge that women have when they are faced with this abortion decision, the more likely it is that they will recognize that life in the womb and respect it. So I think that such bills are an excellent idea.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call. I'm Alan Keyes.

Want to reiterate, we are open lines today. Absolutely anything that's on your mind will be entertained as a topic of conversation on The Alan Keyes Show. We're gonna kind of take off all the restraints and limitations that have, in fact, been imposed by our justified and proper focus on the impeachment process and the impeachment trial of the perjured President, William Jefferson Clinton.

Before I do, however, I do want to begin and inaugurate what will be over the course of the weeks ahead and months ahead, a staple on the program here. In the course of this whole business, as I said, we got some discerning truth out there, and that discerning truth will be commemorated on the program here with the Impeachment Hall of Shame. And our taking notice of those people and institutions who prove themselves to be utterly without integrity in American politics as a consequence of the whole impeachment mess.

At the head of that list, of course, we have the Democrat Party, or the Party-Formerly-Known-as-Democrats-That-Should-Now-Be-Known-as-Pornocrats, or whatever else they might want to call themselves, signifying their utter abandonment of decency. And I think that, sad to say, everybody in this country who wears a Democrat label now deserves that as their appellation.

If you're willing to associate with that business, you go right ahead, that's your business. But it's wrong, and I will say so, and I do disapprove--and if you take it badly, fine, take it badly. You're the one wearing that filthy label, keep it if you want. But the Democrats proved themselves to be without integrity, without respect for Constitution or law, willing to stand with and for the criminal element of their party at the expense of, I think, all integrity. And this is a very dangerous place to be.

So, at the head of the list in the Impeachment Hall of Shame, the Democrat Party.

And then we have those Republicans, the hard-core, pro-abortion Republican clique in the Senate that chose to stand with the liar in the White House. Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, Jim Jeffords, John Chaffee. They top the list in our Impeachment Hall of Shame as the Republicans who stood with the Liar-in-Chief, mainly because, I guess, they embrace the lie. My slogan for these Republicans, "Having embraced the lie (of abortion), they now embrace the liar." And we see where they stand.

Also I think deserving an honorable mention, or dishonorable mention I guess in this case, deserving a dishonorable mention in the Impeachment Hall of Shame, those Republicans who chose to contradict all logic and tell us that the President wasn't lying, but that he did mount an elaborate conspiracy to cover-up his lies. This is a fascinating position to be in. "He's not lying, he didn't commit perjury, but he did conduct an elaborate conspiracy to hide the fact."

May I ask these individuals, "If he wasn't committing perjury, how come he mounted an elaborate conspiracy to cover up the fact that he was committing perjury?" This illogic, this dishonorable mention, if not for a lack of integrity, then for utter lack of logic and common sense, goes to John Warner, Richard Shelby, Ted Stevens, Slade Gordon, and Fred Thompson--Republicans in the Senate of the United States who told us that Bill Clinton was not guilty of perjury, but he was guilty of an elaborate obstruction of justice cover-up to hide his perjury. Fascinating, fascinating. You've gotta admit, the reasoning there is most peculiar. It's the sort of reasoning that characterizes people who ought to be doing something else, and maybe the folks in their state will take account of this at some not too distant point when they get an opportunity, and ask them to do something else.

Who knows? But in any case, this inaugurates the Impeachment Hall of Shame, and we shall be giving dishonorable mention to these parties with reasonable frequency here on The Alan Keyes Show, lest we forget.

Let's get back to the phones. Let's go to a caller in Addie, Washington. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Dr. Keyes, there's a couple of points I'd like to ask about this morning. Is there any way you can set up a trust account for our thirteen House members who brought this forward, so we can show our appreciation out here for these men of character?

Dr. Keyes: Well, I think that there are ways, of course, in which one would be able to gather resources--you mean in order to show them some support politically and otherwise, right?

Caller: Yes, if we had, we have no, you individually if we had the trust account set up and you'd advertise it over there, I'm sure there's a lot of people out here who would like to show their appreciation to those men.

Dr. Keyes: Well, see, there are ways of going about this under present federal election laws, and the way in which you'd have to do it, probably, is to set up a Political Action Committee, and then sort of get contributions from people which would then be shared with these individuals. And that's the approach--I am working on such an approach. And the best way in which to handle that and do that and so forth and so on, under present election laws, probably has some form of Political Action Committee, and so forth. Not the sort of thing, however, I'll say right in front, that I would talk about very much or even organize on the air here. That's something to be done in the explicit political arena, which this is not. But I certainly understand that people have a desire to show their deep appreciation for the House Managers, and I will be making efforts to put together something that will redound to their benefit in preparation for the next election cycle, and I think others are. Matter of fact, I got a communication from one of my good and dear friends in Illinois today, I'm looking for it right here, and a group of folks in the northern suburbs of Chicago have already started a local effort there to put together a PAC that would be explicitly aimed at honoring and thanking the people who were part of the House Management Team on the impeachment trial. I think it's an excellent idea, excellent idea.

Caller: Can I make one more point here?

Dr. Keyes: Yes.

Caller: I'm drafting a letter right now to my Congressman Gorton. I've contacted him several times.

Dr. Keyes: Senator Gorton you mean?

Caller: Senator Gorton, yeah, excuse me, several times do this, I have this letter back here. I believe it is imperative that the matter be resolved in a manner that would have made our Founding Fathers proud. Now, I can't imagine our Founding Fathers being proud of this Senate.

Dr. Keyes: I can't, I can't imagine them being proud of Mr. Gorton's vote or of his logic, or lack thereof. I mean, his vote showed a lack of integrity in my opinion, but his logic showed an utter lack of common sense, since he's standing before the people of his state saying, "This man mounted an elaborate obstruction of justice conspiracy to cover-up his perjury, but he didn't commit perjury." (laughter) That's funny, Slade! I like that, that's an interesting idea.

Caller: All you have to do is be on the fence for both sides on this, and he won't appreciate my letter, but it's going in the mail today.

Dr. Keyes: Well, I'm glad to hear that, I think you ought to let him know. Thank you, appreciate your vote and your thought, and I know and appreciate the thoughts and feelings of so many people I encountered, I have to report again, over the course of the weekend. And we had good crowds that turned out in several different parts. We were in Council Bluffs, and we were in Cedar Rapids, and we were in Red Oak in Iowa. And I'll tell you, the sense of gratitude and heartfelt enthusiasm amongst all the people, the hundreds and hundreds who came together for these gatherings in Iowa over the weekend for the House Managers, can't be overstated. I think that they are deeply respected and loved by Americans who care about principle and integrity.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: I'm Alan Keyes, welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call. We're having an open lines day today, whatever is on your mind we will be taking it up without restriction, except of course the usual standards that we apply on the program here. We are, after all, programming for people of all ages, and that means we try to show a certain respect for decency and decorum on The Alan Keyes Show. But beyond that basic and simple rule of civility, whatever's on your mind today, we will be willing to talk about it with you. Let's go back to the phones, gonna try to get through as many calls as I can today. Let's go to a caller in Mountain Hill, Georgia, welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Hi Alan. I have a challenge for President Clinton, who claims he's in repentance. You know John taught that we are to bring meat for repentance, and I think the only meat that Clinton could have was his resignation from the White House. And I can't, I also have a question. I think that should be his meat, is his resignation, and spend the rest of his life teaching God's righteousness, not his own. And I have a question. How could the Democratic Party embrace a man that, who refused to fight for his country, who passes laws to kill little babies? How can a party that claims to be Democratic embrace him, back him, and put him the White House? That's the question I'd like to ask. I'd like to know the answer. I would like to know the answer to that question.

Dr. Keyes: Now, now you're asking that from what point of view, if I may ask? Are you Democrat or Republican?

Caller: I have voted Democrat most of the time, but I realized what kind of people they were, so I quit voting. And the Republicans, I want you to know, they're being drug down in the gutter with the Democrats. They're not got guts enough to stand up to 'em. So how? Let me ask you this, how can the Democrat Party embrace a man that refused to fight for his country--he's a draft dodger, okay? How can they do this? Where did the law come in that they could do this?

Dr. Keyes: Well, sad to say, I think your question is right to the point. It's one that in various ways I have been putting on the air, in speeches everywhere I go. I am deeply shocked, in fact, by the extent to which the Democrats have been willing to abandon any kind of semblance or appearance of moral judgment or conscience in these matters, and stand with somebody like Bill Clinton. But this is what they're doing, because they think at the moment, one, that they're gonna get away with it, that it serves their power purposes and political purposes--and that being the case, they figure, "Why not?" 'Cause we're just a party, apparently they're just a party all about power and who's got it, and nothing else matters.

And as I've said, I actually think that's extremely dangerous to the future, that we have a political party, major political party in this country that may some day control the White House, control the Congress and all the apparatus of government, that apparently believes that there are no constraints to be placed on the abuse of Constitution and law, so long as it serves their agenda. They have served notice on us in this episode that this is their attitude. And having received that notice that they are that kind of party, why would anybody in their right mind trust them ever again with the power of government? Because when they have it, you can be certain they're gonna abuse it against us.

Thank you for your call, really appreciate it. Let's go to a caller in Cleveland, Ohio. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Good morning, Alan. I'm trying to figure out some answers to the questions myself, and I've come to a perplexed situation here. Maybe you can help. The abortion issue, is there a particular ideology that covets that belief and would stand to benefit from abortions?

Dr. Keyes: Yeah, matter of fact I think that abortion is embraced by the radical left-wingers, for the most part because it validates their understanding of human beings and human nature that essentially says, "In and of ourselves, we are creatures without intrinsic value. We have no moral worth, we have no moral dignity. There is no transcendent God who affirms our worth from the moment that we appear in the womb. As a result, any worth we have is the result of our material success, and circumstances, and judgments that are made by human beings and by our history," and all of that. That whole understanding of human life which denies the existence of God, of natural law and equity, and puts their reliance on materialism and on the judgment of human beings--that's the left-wing in America.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: I'm Alan Keyes, welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call. Going back to our caller, because he was raising a question about who would embrace abortion and how it serves their ideology, and I guess to just the point I was making as we left, I think that abortion actually represents the epitome, the heart and soul of the moral or immoral view that, sadly speaking, is at the heart of left-wing ideology in the world. It's very materialistic, it's a view that denies the intrinsic moral worth and dignity of human beings and human life, puts its emphasis on materialism and ultimately sees no standard for choice or judgment except human will and the success that may or may not come from what you put together in the way of your human actions, what they call ultimately in its totality, history. And so, that view, which stands in contrast to a view which sees God as the foundation of truth and morality, which sees human beings having an intrinsic worth grounded in the authority of God, and which ultimately sees that as the standard by which we are to judge right and wrong, rather than human will and history--abortion stands on the opposite side from the view I just described.

Caller: Yes Alan, would you consider the Dr. Kevorkian a dichotomy of the abortion/old-age type syndrome?

Dr. Keyes: Well, what I see in Dr. Kevorkian is simply somebody who represents the outcome--the fruit, if you like--of the morality of the culture of death. That morality which, as I just said, I think really ultimately characterizes the left-wing ideologies that then also, in consequence of their sort of view of human beings and human nature, put a great emphasis on power, on control by government, and things of this kind.

Caller: This is social engineering, isn't it Alan?

Dr. Keyes: Well, ultimately it provides the basis for what you might call social engineering, because ultimately if we are to be in any sense as a people, if we are to be confronted by a future of any kind, what these people believe is that it has to be the result of our will. We have to construct it. Society has no other basis except human construction. The idea that there is a basis for human society that transcends human will, that you can see in a natural law, in the will of God, in anything like that, they just deny all of that. And that denial, I think, is essential to their left-wing point of view. It's reflected, of course, in the formal presentations of that view, in Marx and people like this, but I think it's also there when we look at the way liberals and socialists approach society.

Caller: Right, and Mr. Lenin also said that we will not overtake America through ammunition or guns or violence, we'll overtake it because they will vote us in.

Dr. Keyes: Um-hum, well I think what he was seeing there is sadly what we are seeing in progress in our country today. The fundamental assault in America--and I've been trying to point this out to folks who are all caught up in other things, and listening to people who are short-sighted. The fundamental assault that will bring down our system of self-government and liberty is the moral assault, the assault that seeks to throw away the moral foundations of our country and open the door, therefore, to Socialism and stateism in such a form that as you just said--we won't have to be conquered by it, because, having corrupted our hearts and our judgment, we will voluntarily choose to subject ourselves to this oppressive way of life.

And that, sadly, I think is an agenda that has been moving with a lot of success that culminates even in the proposals I was talking about earlier, this proposal by Education Secretary Reilly to have the national government take over our schools, and so forth and so on. All in line with the agenda that was articulated, as you point out, by Marx and Engels back in the 19th Century as to how Communism ultimately triumphs in a society--not by external conquest, but by taking over especially, ultimately, the means of education and moral formation.

Caller: Exactly. And it seems to me, Alan, after all the years I've been going through this, is that there is only one problem that we have in this world and in this country, and that's an absence of the concept of God. If we don't direct our ways that God wills, then we will face the Communist revolution.

Dr. Keyes: Well, I think you're right. I think that ultimately what stands between us and that kind of Communist tyranny is the belief in Almighty God and the consequence of that belief, which is that their understanding of what constitutes judgment and right, which is history and power, that that is wrong. That there are principles of right and wrong that transcend history, and power and success and results, and which we have to respect if we are truly to value human beings at their God-given worth. Our country was founded on that set of principles which is ultimately grounded in the acknowledgment of that sovereign, transcendent authority of God Almighty. Abandon that, and our institutions will crumble, this I deeply believe.

Thank you, appreciate your call--very thoughtful one. Let's go to a caller in, I'm sorry they didn't write this, Benton Harbor, I guess that must be. Benton Harbor, Michigan, 'cause they gave me an abbreviation I had to figure out there. Welcome to the show.

Caller: Yes, you know, I think all this was, the impeachment trial and everything was nothing but a kangaroo court. And you go back and look at Reagan and Bush and Poindexter and Ollie North and everything on Iran-Contra--all this money for these arms and everything. Now, I was a military man myself, and I know no lieutenant colonel has that much authority. So, if Bush and Reagan didn't know anything about it, well, Reagan's got Alzheimer's now, but he acted like he had it then, too. He didn't know, or he forgot. And hey, what happened to all them millions and millions of dollars? Nobody's ever said what happened to this money?

Dr. Keyes: Well, actually that's not true. The thing I always find intriguing when people bring up Iran-Contra and all that is they always talk as if the Democrats didn't launch a multi-million dollar investigation, have lengthy hearings into all of that, in which they grilled people up and down the line, including depositions from the President, the Secretary of State, and all of these folks. They had more commanding majorities in the Senate and the House than the Republicans do now, and yet they did not impeach Ronald Wilson Reagan. So you're gonna make me believe that all of it amounted to something? If it had amounted to something you think that the Democrats wouldn't have moved against Ronald Reagan? Ha! Not on your life. They surely would have moved. So I don't know what you're--we're comparing apples and oranges here, because in terms of the results and the fruits of the investigation, Bill Clinton was caught dead to rights. He was guilty as sin, and they all know it.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back to America's Call. Let me get back to the phones, a caller from Soucie, Mississippi. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Hello?

Dr. Keyes: Now can we have just a bit of a chat? I know I'm gonna distract you, but it's Soucie, right?

Caller: Right.

Dr. Keyes: See, and this is one of the things that sometimes intrigues me about, well, it's sort of Mississippi, Louisiana, the parts of the country where the French had an influence, right? And sometimes people will pronounce the name of their town the way the French would pronounce it, that's what you're doing. And then other times they'll pronounce it the way the English speakers sort of pronounced it, and I can never tell until you know somebody from there, you can't tell which is which. So y'all do it the French way, which is fine by me.

Caller: Well, originally I'm from Missouri, and some people say Missouri, and some people say Missoura, so consequently it depends on who I'm talking to as to how I pronounce that.

Dr. Keyes: Yeah, well it's fascinating, anyway. But it's Soucie, Mississippi. Welcome to the show. And if I haven't completely made you forget what you were gonna talk about, come ahead. (laughter)

Caller: Oh, I think not. About six months ago, I put a bumper sticker on my car, and I wish I could see millions of these around the country, and it simply says this, "There are patriotic Americans, and then there are Democrats".

Dr. Keyes: (chuckling) I'll bet the Democrats, or at least the people that belong to the Party-Formerly-Known-as-the-Democrats, really love that one, don't they?

Caller: I suppose they do. You know, I voted Democratic up until Ronald Reagan. And under Carter, I woke up when he just about bankrupted me, and my business, and consequently I've been voting Republican ever since. Although, at times I get very, very disgusted with a few of them. Having lived for five and a half years in Pennsylvania under Arlen Specter, it disgusts me to no end that that man takes the position that he takes concerning many subjects, but this one concerning the impeachment, that was the last straw. I never had a lot of respect for him at all, even though I did vote for him when I lived up there. But that man couldn't get a man from me now for dog catcher, and it's as simple as that.

Dr. Keyes: I have a feeling, too, and I don't want to speak out of turn about people in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, but I think these people who voted to embrace Bill Clinton's lies are going to be deeply shocked now to discover that a lot of folks like yourself who disagreed with them on the issues and used to vote for them because of the Republican label and other stuff, aren't gonna do it anymore. And they are gonna go down to defeat.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call.

I'm Alan Keyes. After many weeks in which we rightly and necessarily constrained in our focus and attention by the impeachment of Bill Clinton, today is an open lines day, a Caller Leadership Day, as I often refer to them, in which I am just taking as many calls as I can get through, talking about whatever is on your minds. No surprise, of course, that the aftereffects of this moral holocaust that Bill Clinton is responsible for is in fact on many minds, among many other things, and we are continuing in our discussion about that and other things as they come up. But I just want to let you all know, as you're sitting here listening, that if you have things on your mind, things you'd like to talk about, whatever they may be, they can have to do with the impeachment and its aftermath--they can have to do with other things that you've been wanting to talk about in the course of the last several weeks. I think for, in fact, the next few days I will be taking this approach, because I think all of us have within our minds a lot of things that along the way we noticed, wanted to talk about, and that we didn't take up--such as this morning, I was talking a good deal about some of the things that have been said about education in the course of the past few weeks, including this proposal by Education Secretary Reilly to have the national government take over licensing of teachers. That doesn't sound at all like a Socialist/Communist proposal, does it? Sure it does. Of course it does, and we'll see more of the same from this Clinton Administration as time goes by, you can bet.

Let's go to a caller from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Thank you sir. A Free Republic honor, sir. Mr. Keyes, Dr. Keyes, may I ask you, may I tell you, I tried for days to get through to C-SPAN during the so-called trial when they had acquit, convict, etc., and all that. I wanted to call in and ask the people that were calling in to acquit Bill Clinton if they had ever read the Constitution of the United States, then if it was possible for them to read the Communist Manifesto, especially the ten points that they need to take over the country, and to compare the two to see which one the Democrats were following more closely.

Dr. Keyes: Um-hum, very interesting point.

Caller: And if any of them, if any of your listeners don't understand, we're better than two-thirds of the way through the ten points of the Communist Manifesto.

Dr. Keyes: Um-hum, but a lot of folks don't realize the role that certain things played in the formulations of Marx and Engels. For instance, many people don't realize that the income tax proposal was part of that plan, that the takeover of educational institutions was part of that plan, that the undermining of family and the moral basis of the family was part of that. They don't realize this. So when these things go on, they don't see them in that context, 'cause I guess they're not aware of the fact that the Communist Manifesto and the whole theory of Communism, it wasn't just about "economics" in the sense of money and material relations. It dealt comprehensively with what was needed to overthrow the culture, right, that they believe stood in the way of their triumph.

Caller: And as you said, it started with the income tax, but if you follow it along, the removal of prayer from the schools was another, that was a huge step. And then when Bill Clinton got in, the "it takes a village"-type mentality. We're there. We are so close to it now, I hate to say this, but I'm glad that I am approaching the end of my life. I'm 64. I won't be here much longer, perhaps I will not live to see the total downfall of this once great nation. I hate to think of it.

Dr. Keyes: See, the sad thing is, though, and I'm sad to say there are days when I perfectly well understand what you just said, you know what keeps me from being able to take any comfort in something like that?

Caller: What's that?

Dr. Keyes: I have a son who is nine, and a daughter who is thirteen, and another son who is sixteen, and the thought that they would grow to my age to see a country in which they no longer enjoyed the reality of liberty and self-government, just absolutely breaks my heart.

Caller: Oh, absolutely, it breaks mine. That's why I am doing everything I can. I get on TalkSpot, I get on FreeRepublic, I talk to people all over. If I can go to D.C. and protest, I certainly will. I want people to understand that my generation allowed so much of this to happen. We stood by and let the government do what they wanted to. We didn't protest, we didn't say, "Hey this is wrong." I'm trying to make amends for my mistakes now, by doing everything in my power so your children, so the children and grandchildren of other people that I've met will not grow up under something like that.

Dr. Keyes: Exactly. Thank you, appreciate the call, and thanks for the efforts, too.

I think that over the course of the last few months, one of the things that has helped me to sustain a sense of hope about this country's future, one of the things--has nothing to do with what goes on in Washington, and the leadership and all this other stuff people talk about. One of the things that's helped me to sustain a sense of hope in spite of everything is what I have seen in the way of the involvement and interest and concern of people around the country, including folks who turned out for the rally in Washington, about this impeachment business, including all of you who were writing and calling, and who didn't give in to despair and the counsels of surrender toward the end of this process.

And I hope that all of you realize that we sit here--and who deserted the fold? A bunch of liberal Republicans, that's who did it. The list of squishy liberal Republicans, including five of them hard-core pro-aborts who are Republicans-in-name-only. Because of your efforts, other Republicans who might have been tempted, conservatives whose names were being thrown around out there, I think they got fair warning from all of you at the grass roots, "Don't you cross this line." And they didn't. And you owe yourselves a vote of thanks. (Dr. Keyes applauds) Can we give some applause to the people in my audience who, in a sacrificial way were writing and calling their Senators, who gave no heed to the counsels of despair, but stayed involved and helped to hold the line on this matter? (soundbite of applause) God bless you.

I just want to express my appreciation for all of you. We talk about the House Managers and all that they did, but believe me, there would have been no Articles of Impeachment and there would have been not even as much integrity as we saw amongst people in the Senate of the United States, if y'all hadn't held firm and been involved and raised your voices and your hearts on behalf of this nation and the integrity of its laws and Constitution. So, once again, I think we see the proof that what saves this country from utter destruction is the decent heart of its people. And if we can mobilize more of it, I think we'll see more than just that kind of damage limiting, we'll be able to set things straight.

Let's get back to the phones, a caller from Paso Robles, California.

Caller: Thank you. I wanted to talk about the hidden motive for the abortion. It seems to me, I read an article about Margaret Sanger, and about how her motive for getting abortion legalized was to reduce the population of the poor.

Dr. Keyes: I think we have to be careful. Sanger was an individual, yes, whose attitude toward population control seemed very motivated by these kinds of sentiments, animosity toward the poor, toward different races that she considered inferior. There was a very, kind of elitist, racist element to Sanger's approach to things, but we must be careful to clarify the point that in the early days with Planned Parenthood, they didn't push abortion openly, they did not. This was a wrinkle that was implied in everything she said and wrote, including her countenancing of the Nazis and stuff that they did, but they were very careful not to hoist the Jolly Roger of abortion until they had gotten established.

Caller: Also, the profit motive. I mean, you never hear about the multi-millionaires that open these abortion clinics and become wealthy almost overnight, I mean within months. I've heard that there's a woman, I can't remember her name, who used to be a doctor in abortion clinics, who is now on the anti-abortion circuit, and she talks about the amount of millions of dollars that these clinics make. And that's what's fueling the whole thing, and it's just something I never hear.

Dr. Keyes: It is a multi-billion dollar industry, and in that respect, I think there are similarities between the abortion situation and situation of slavery back in the 19th Century. We always think about these things as moral evils, which they are, right? But ultimately the moral evil that drove slavery was not, as some people try to pretend, racism. That wasn't it at all. Racism was, in fact, an ideology that served the real evil that was at work in slavery, which was the evil of what? Unbridled greed, which respected no limits of human decency in the pursuit of cash and profit at the expense of human life. That exact same unbridled greed, knowing no boundaries of moral constraint, is what is at the heart of the abortion business. It is a business that sells human life, death if you like, that sells out human life for the sake of profit.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: I'm Alan Keyes, this is America's Wake-Up Call, welcome back. Let's get back to the phones, a caller in Cleveland, Tennessee. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Hi Alan, how's it going?

Dr. Keyes: Going very well, thank you.

Caller: I'm wondering about the Chinese. Clinton gave all that technology to the Chinese, and I'm wondering if they're gonna do anything about that, to have an investigation on the treason that he's done to this country.

Dr. Keyes: Well, it's a coincidence that I'm talking to you and you live in Tennessee, because one of the little sidelights that occurred to me as I was watching this thing on Friday was when the other shoe dropped and Fred Thompson voted to let him off the hook on the perjury charge, which I found kind of instructive and unexpected. I wasn't expecting Thompson to be among those who was willing to perjure himself in order to support this perjured President, right? And yet you will recall that Fred Thompson is the guy who was in charge of that supposed Senate investigation into this very subject, of China, the China relationship and all of that, an investigation that they abruptly stopped just as they were starting to get into areas of great interest that might have helped us to understand the truth. Don't you think that that's an interesting coincidence?

Caller: Well that sure is. That's like the naval base out there Clinton's letting the Chinese come right there in California. Something about the Chinese, and they confiscate those 2,000 AK47's over that that Wong-Dong, whatever his name over this is, is wining and dining there with Clinton in the White House. That's coincidence right there too.

Dr. Keyes: Well see, all of these sorts of things are going on, and what we see is a Clinton Administration that has obviously been engaged in activities that are highly questionable, favorable to the Chinese, that may even as we know from facts that are on the table, involve the transfer of Chinese money, into the coffers of Democrat and the Democrat Party and the Clinton legal defense fund and all of this. All in ways that seem to contravene the law and other sort of stuff. Meanwhile, no effective investigation of any of it, and the investigation that we promised suddenly halted right in the midst of things by the chairman, who happened to be Fred Thompson, who then turns up later voting for Bill Clinton on the perjury charge. Doesn't this all suggest that maybe there is more to this than meets the eye, that maybe there are some people on both sides of the aisle who have an interest in making sure that we don't know the truth about this China relationship?

Caller: Well, I think it's a conspiracy and I think this Monica Lewinsky bull, they should have went after him on the FBI files that Hillary got on all these Republicans, and I think they should have went after that, and they should have went after more and done a more thorough investigation on these Chinese. Ken Starr, he tried to get these investigations, and those people fled the country and they're pleading the fifth, and that right there is the truth.

Dr. Keyes: Well, first though, be careful. The China stuff never fell under Ken Starr's purview. That was not his, it wasn't within his province as independent counsel, and Janet Reno refused steadfastly to appoint an independent counsel on the China stuff, and oddly enough after a few bleats and whines, the Republicans did nothing effectively to pressure her or to get the facts or to do anything. I keep bringing it back to this because I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that this China thing is just about the Clinton Administration's betrayal. The question we have to keep asking ourselves about this is why have the Republicans been so ineffective in terms of focusing on this and getting at the truth. Why? What is going on? And I think that this China policy actually has, sad to say, support that extends beyond just the Clinton coterie, where we're looking at something that, like other aspects of this business reveals an extent of corruption in our entire political elite that ought to be very disturbing to all of us. Am I making sense?

Caller: That's exactly right. And this United Nations that Clinton keeps sending all our troops up to these little hot spots to be peacekeepers all over the world, and who's gonna protect us after he keeps sending all of our military? And Russia, we're under treaties to dismantle our arms, and Clinton he's raping our military, and yet we're giving them money so they're building up their military. And it's like the Chinese infiltrating our government, and here we're sitting back and watching all this. To me, that's treason. He sold us out to the Chinese and the Communists. I think he wants Communists to come in this country and take us over, too, that's what it's looking like to me.

Dr. Keyes: Well, sad to say, the proposals that Clinton advances, starting back with the healthcare takeover by the federal government, now we have Education Secretary Reilly moving a proposal that would have basically the federal government taking over completely in our schools and so forth, all of this looks to me like elements of that Socialist/Communist agenda which they are putting in place. They don't do it all at once, of course. They're not gonna openly announce, "Oh, we're Communists, we're Socialists, we've come to bring that left-wing garbage to America"--they're not gonna say that. They'll lie to us. That's why the Liar-in-Chief is what he is. The only way that they will get Americans to swallow this Socialist garbage is with lies. And so they need a skilled liar at the helm while they're pushing all of this garbage. And that I think is without doubt what we have seen in the Clinton Administration, and will continue to see, sad to say. And the unfortunate thing is that on all these fronts you've been talking about, we have to keep asking the question, why have the Republicans been so silent and ineffectual? Is this just incompetence, is it fear, is it collusion? What is going on? That's a question that's been hanging in the air for several years, especially with respect to this China policy. Thank you for your call, appreciate it very much.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: I'm Alan Keyes, welcome back.

You know, I'll be heading out to California toward the end of this month. Let's see, what is it now? It is February 16, so that puts me about ten days away from a visit to California where I'll be speaking at a meeting of some of the party leaders at the State Convention for the Republican Party in California. Therefore, I noted with interest an article in the Washington Times, "California GOP battles pro-life plank. Centrists call stance political suicide." Centrists, you see, not pro-abortion extremists. "Pro-choice Republicans," not pro-abortion.

I love it, this is the Washington Times we're dealing with here, and even these people can't speak the language. "Pro-choice Republicans who plan a rebellion against ten years of conservative control of the California GOP say opposition to abortion by the party's 'right-wing wackos' is political suicide in the nation's most populous state. The pro-choice Republicans say they have enough votes to purge current party leaders at a state convention February 26-28 in Sacramento."

Know what I find fascinating about this? You had a candidate that they ran for the United States Senate out there who turned out to be a closet pro-abortion type, or not even so closet, and who then got whiplashed because of his insincerity on the moral issues, and he went down to utter destruction and helped to take Lundgren with him. Having learned nothing from that, you have these folks who now want to put the Republican Party in California on the path to death. They say it's political suicide to be pro-life? Nonsense. But if the Republican Party in California ceases to be pro-life, you watch how quickly they will lose everything, and I mean everything. Because the core of folks who are moral conservative, pro-life people--I think they're fed up, sick to death of unprincipled squishes.

That's one of the reasons that the fellow who ran for Senate out there on the Republican ticket got hurt so badly when it became clear that he was insincere in his commitment on the moral front. And so instead of drawing the right lesson from that, they want to push the party further down the road to death in California. It's crazy. What we need, throughout the country and throughout politics in America, is some people who are gonna stand with integrity and principle rather than play games. And the further that any Republicans move from that position of integrity, the more likely it is that they will be totally wiped out in American politics.

And I think those people who are recommending such a course to the Republican Party, "centrist course," all of this sort of verbiage meant to imply the sacrifice of decent principle, they are actually setting the Republicans up to go the way of the Whigs, and I would predict that down that road the Republican Party will not last out the generation in terms of its place in American life and politics. And it would be really, really a disastrous result if the Republican Party in California openly abandons its pro-life stance at this or any other convention, and I would predict that it would wipe out the party in California, as it will in other parts of the country. Because en masse, the moral conservatives who have accounted for the party's growth and strength and victories in the course of the last twenty years will turn their backs on the party rather than turn their backs on truth. You bet, that's what's gonna happen. I predict with confidence. So we will see how that turns out, out there in California. It's gonna be interesting to keep an eye on it, and I guess I'll get a first-hand view when I go out there.

Anyway, let's get back to the phones, a caller in Lancaster, South Carolina.

Caller: First, Alan, where do I get my Alan Keyes for President sticker to put on my four-wheel-drive?

Dr. Keyes: (laughing) Well, if you hold the line, we'll be able to give you that information when you go off the air. They are, in fact, available from some friends of mine who have put together a little exploratory effort.

Caller: I want one, and I have a lot of friends that would like one, too.

Dr. Keyes: Thank you.

Caller: What I want to say is why does lying not matter to the Democrats? The President was elected on a lie, the Gennifer Flowers lie. He said that he did not have an affair with her, and it came to light that he had a thirteen-year affair with her that Hillary knew about. Why does that not matter?

Dr. Keyes: Well, I think there is actually a very profound answer to that question and it has to do with the fact that the Democrats are the party that has abandoned the idea of there being any ground or basis for moral judgment. They believe in all this moral relativism, and so forth and so on. The party that believes that there is no truth will obviously have no objection to liars. You understand what I'm saying? And that's the Democrat Party. It's a party that believes there is no truth, and since they believe there is no truth, why should they care about lies? Bill Clinton is in that sense their ideal candidate, 'cause he'll tell whatever lies are needed for them to hold on to power.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back to America's Wake-Up Call.

Now, I am not going to make a comment on the following piece of factual information, but tomorrow we have arranged to have Larry Klayman from Judicial Watch coming in to talk to us, and we will hopefully be able to schedule him during the program and he can help enlighten us a little bit, 'cause they put out a press release and other things from Judicial Watch about this. But amongst the five hard core, pro-abortion Senators, what I'm calling "the perjured Clinton Republicans," the Republicans who were willing to perjure themselves, now why do you say they've perjured themselves? I say they perjured themselves because they swore an oath to do impartial justice based on the Constitution and the law, and then they ignored both in order to cast their votes against the Articles of Impeachment. It's that simple, they perjured themselves in support of a perjured President. So they joined the perjured Democrats and they are perjured Republicans, and these perjured Republicans, the five hard core, pro-abortion Republicans who voted against both Articles of Impeachment, included Arlen Specter. Arlen Specter, Senator from Pennsylvania.

I have in front of me here a little piece of information that says the following: "The President today announced his intent to nominate Joan Specter as a member of the National Council on the Arts." This is from May 22, 1998. "Miss Joan Specter of Philadelphia has a balanced, forceful career," etc. They describe her background, and so forth and so on. And she went to the National Council on the Arts, which is group that advises the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Isn't that special?

And so you, I haven't said a word about this, I am simply pointing to this fact over here--that over here you have Arlen Specter, part of the perjured Republicans supporting the perjured President in this vote on Friday, and over here you have fact in the world that Joan Specter has been appointed by the President to be on this commission. Tomorrow, Larry Klayman will help us to understand that a little better. Let's see where he goes with it. It will be interesting, so tune in.

Let's go to a caller in Pioneer, Ohio. Welcome to The Alan Keyes Show.

Caller: Good morning Alan. This won't be on any of the network news or CNN or anything else, but today 4,000 unarmed, defenseless American citizens will be murdered in their beds. I'm referring, of course, to abortion. The protests and the marches in front of the clinics, that's all well and good and honorable, but it doesn't change too many people's minds. I think what we need to point is the economic ramifications of this.

My one example that I like to use is a car seat, the child seat? Parents leave the hospital with a newborn baby, they have to have a car seat, it's required by all the laws in all the states, I believe. It's a thirty to forty dollar item. If you've got your pocket calculator, multiply that by the thirty five million that have been destroyed, flushed down the drain, and that's just one item that has been taken from our economy. Granted, I believe that it is murder, it's Biblically wrong, but most people don't look at it in that context. If you show people where it is getting in their pockets, they may change their opinion on abortion. I can't understand politicians destroying potential voters. These people, these thirty-five million people would have been voters. They are potential consumers.

Dr. Keyes: All of these calculations, though--and I'm not saying that you're wrong about that, because we are gonna face, among other things, also problems in terms of the labor force that's gonna be there to support Social Security in the next century because of all the young people that we have killed off who will not be workers, providing material support for the system and for the economy. I think the economic argument holds true, and we are, of course, gonna suffer those consequences, you're exactly right.

I have to confess though, I don't think it's a substitute for, it's a compliment to, the argument that is made on the basis of our basic American moral principles. Because I think we have to be careful too that this isn't just a question of Biblical morality. It's a question of American civic morality. And so even if people don't accept the Scriptures, they generally, by and large, do accept the Declaration of Independence, and that Declaration states clearly that our rights come from the Creator God, not from the Constitution or our mother's choice. So the debate over the moral principle is not just a debate about religion. It is a debate about American civic principles which we are abandoning, and as we abandon them, as we can see every day, we are destroying the moral culture needed to sustain our freedom. But the point that you make, I think, is also one that reinforces the truth. When you abandon moral principle, you suffer the consequences, right?

Caller: Exactly.

Dr. Keyes: And among those consequences are those things you're pointing out in terms of the weakening of prospects for our economic life, of people in the workplace, of products that aren't going to be bought. Of course, the politicians would probably tell you they're more afraid of the voters alive today than voters who will never be alive, 'cause they let them be killed in the womb. Sad to say, that's the kind of cheap calculation they engage in, some of them.

Caller: That's why I started off with American citizens. There are people who are sneaking across our borders every day, to have children born in America, so they can be American citizens, yet on a daily basis we are destroying American citizens. Under any other circumstances, if 4,000 American citizens were killed, we would declare war.

Dr. Keyes: Would we? See, one of the things I think we need to think about which is raised exactly in the way that you put that, is that this abortion culture actually increases our insensitivity to the idea of killing people, whether they're citizens or not. If it serves this left-wing ideology and their little agenda, we start with the babes in the womb, we're extending it now to elderly people with euthanasia and all of this sort of stuff. And soon, I think in addition to the emotionally inconvenient life and economically inconvenient life, they will tell us that it will be okay to do away with the politically inconvenient life. At that point, of course, they'll be coming for folks like me and you. I think we ought to give that some thought.

(commercial break)

Dr. Keyes: Welcome back.

You know, there's been a little bit of a furor in the last week over supposedly Jerry Falwell making a comment about one of the Teletubbies. I understand that it actually turned out that it was a newsletter that was associated with a group that Falwell is part of. It wasn't actually Jerry Falwell who made the comment, and then a lot of outcry, laughing because somebody would actually suggest that the radical homosexuals would be targeting our young people and doing stuff through Teletubbies, after all. Ha, ha, ha! And everybody's laughing.

From the American Family Association, my colleagues just put in front of me an interesting little sidelight here. "Pro-homosexual video targeting school children to get PBS air time. Gay rights activists have apparently realized that their greatest potential for changing America's mind about the homosexual lifestyle lies in changing the seed for tomorrow's harvest, children. Armed with an acclaimed video that targets school children with the message that 'gay is okay,' those activists are heading to PBS. The producers of 'It's Elementary,' talking about gay issues in school, Helen Cohen and Academy Award winning documentary producer Deborah Chasnoff have announced that PBS stations will be airing the video across the country in June. In 1992, Chasnoff became the first woman openly to declare her lesbianism at the Oscars. Congress recently increased funding to PBS from $250 million to $344 million per year. 'It's Elementary' was filmed on location at six elementary and middle schools where teachers and principles are force-feeding children with a pro-gay message."

Why is it that when somebody conservative even comes close to pointing to all that's being done to try to corrupt the minds of our children in these matters, they're gonna be ridiculed and laughed at, and so forth and so on. But when it's actually being done, nobody ridicules this and says "Ahahaha! Going after our children, how silly!" THEY ARE! I mean, why are people gonna think, "Oh, it's absurd to suggest that there would be any kind of pro-homosexual propaganda content in something intended for children," and then we have right here a piece of pro-homosexual propaganda intended for children, airing on PBS, paid for, in part at least, with your tax dollars?

I think we ought to reflect on these things, because as a caller pointed out previously, one of the truths about the Communist/Socialist left-wing agenda is that from the early days, with Marx, Engels, and those people, they have understood that it's not just about money and economic structures and banks, and taking over the physical means of production. Nah! They understood from day one that the assault on the moral flank was ultimately the one that would allow them to win without hardly firing a shot. And they're still up to it. And we need to be awake to this fact, and fighting back in order to make sure that our children grow up still capable of freedom.

Back with you bright and lively tomorrow. In the meanwhile, God be with you.