May 2, 2008

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jane in Detroit, I'm glad you called.  It's Open Line Friday.  Hello.

CALLER:  Hi, Rush.  Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH:  Thank you.

CALLER:  And the one thing that I want to say is, you know, I understand Operation Chaos and what you're sorta trying to do. But at the end of all things, like John McCain is some kind of big prize that we're going to get at the end of it all?

RUSH:  I never said that.

CALLER:  Well...

RUSH:  I never said that.

CALLER:  All three of them stink, Rush, all three of them do.  And --

RUSH:  One of them's going to win.

CALLER:  Well, I -- Not necessarily.  I am not voting for the lesser of two evils ever again.  I am going to write in my candidate and hopefully that will say something that if they can't get half the Electoral College, then something else is going to have to break, because they all stink.  I don't want any of them in it, and that's pretty much what I'm going to do.

RUSH:  That doesn't... Look, you don't want that, because if neither of them get enough... With two candidates, you're going to have... Well, Nader is in there.  It's a wild card.  You don't know what's going to happen with Nader.  You know Ron Paul may not quit.  He may not, so who knows.

CALLER:  That's who I'm writing in, Rush, is Ron Paul.

RUSH:  Well, good.  That's helpful.

CALLER:  (laughs)

RUSH:  Now --

CALLER:  It's better than voting for the lesser of two evils! Everybody keeps doing it and they wonder why --

RUSH:  I understand. I understand, and really what's frustrating is you have no choice.  The parties have given you choices that, you know, they might as well give you cold spaghetti, right?

CALLER:  They stink.  You know it and I know it, Rush.

CALLER:  (laughing)

RUSH:  (laughing)

CALLER: Yeah.  But here --

CALLER:  (laughing) Well, that's all I could say.  That's all I could say.

RUSH:  Powerful, very powerful.  You sure you don't want to add anything to this?

CALLER:  No, no.

RUSH: Yes, I do what I was going to tell you out there, Jane. By the way, Jane is one of my all-time, top-ten favorite female names.

CALLER:  Hey, all right! I was wondering about that.

RUSH:  It is.  I was going to tell you: If we got Nader and Paul and McCain and whoever the Democrats throw up there for slaughter, you got four of them in there; and if nobody gets 270 electoral votes, do you know how the whole thing is decided?

CALLER:  Uh, actually I'm pretty clueless about it.

RUSH:  Congress.  Do you happen to know who runs Congress?

CALLER:  Most likely the Democrats right now.

RUSH:  Democrats run Congress.  This will all be decided in the House of Representatives if you don't get to 270 electoral votes.

CALLER:  Well, I tell you what, Ron Paul's got a lot of Democrats coming to his side, so...

RUSH:  Yeah? Well, you count on that.

CALLER: (laughing) I sure will.

RUSH: You count on that, when the Democrats have a choice between Obama or Hillary or Ron Paul.

CALLER:  Hey Ron Paul, hope for America, Rush!

RUSH: That's not the point.

CALLER: Hope for America, baby!

RUSH:  That's not the point.  I'm going to call you Chris Matthews if you keep talking so I'm going to say so long.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  Thanks much for the phone call, and have a great electoral season. Have a great summer out there.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

• Los Angeles Times: Ron Paul Supporters Not Lining Up Behind McCain

June 3, 2008

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Since the subject of Senator McCain has been raised by our caller, Mona, from Lemay, Missouri, let's go to CNN's American Morning this morning, McCain's senior advisor Steve Schmidt is the guest.  He's on there, I guess this is John Roberts, who says, "You chose New Orleans as the site for this speech because according to the campaign quota, it epitomizes government's failure but also brings President Bush into the conversation."  I guess this is a speech about Katrina.  "Do you expect that while some people will talk about the differences between Senator McCain and President Bush, people who write about tonight's speech will talk about what they have in common and that might not be so good for you?"

SCHMIDT:  New Orleans is a city that more than any other in the country signifies for the American people what is broken about our government and institutions.  Senator Obama's fond of saying that John McCain represents a third term for George W. Bush.  The reality is that Senator McCain has disagreed on issue after issue with President Bush over the last eight years.  He is his own man.

RUSH:  Now, this just makes me fume, as I imagine it makes you fume as well.  By the way, this is McCain's senior advisor Steve Schmidt.  And so, Obama's out there saying McCain is going to be George W. Bush III.  Now, I know Bush's approval numbers are where they are and I know that politicians follow numbers and polls and this kind of thing.  But I thought McCain, in addition to being his own man, was a man.  The idea of accepting this premise that his campaign and his presence would be the same as George Bush and would be Bush III, if you will, could be easily swatted away.  But, no, the advisor has to go out and say, look, New Orleans is a city that more than any other in the country signifies to the American people what's broken about our government institution.  Mr. Schmidt, New Orleans signifies no such thing.  May I tell you in the McCain campaign and the rest of this country what Katrina, New Orleans, signified?  

What did we have in New Orleans?  We had 60-plus years of unchecked, unfettered liberalism.  We had an entitlement community.  We had a group of people, a population, the vast majority of which had no idea how to fend for themselves, because they haven't had to.  There's always been a government program for this or for that.  There was even a government program to maintain them in their poverty.  Not one thing that was wrong in New Orleans could be traced to the Republican Party or conservatism or the federal government.  New Orleans was the mess it was because of liberal corruption in not getting the levees fixed.  The money was there, the money had been appropriated, but because of the convoluted political structure of the city of New Orleans, a lot of the money went into people's back pockets.  We all remember seeing the pictures of empty school buses.  Those buses could have been used to get people out of town.  But, oh, no, nobody thought of that.  And so when people are stranded in an area they should not have been, when they shoulda gotten out of town, of course it's easy to dump on the federal government, but why would anybody think the federal government and FEMA could walk in there and wave a magic wand and in a matter of a week make everybody all better?  

Would somebody cite for me the one example, a single example of the federal government fixing a natural disaster of that proportion overnight?  Would somebody cite for me the example of a federal bureaucracy fixing anything?  From welfare, to poverty, to cable TV prices, whatever it is you're unhappy about.  What ought to be being stated in this campaign once and for all, is, American people, it is time to stop putting all your trust and hope in the federal government, a bunch of faceless, nameless bureaucrats you never meet, people you haven't elected.  They're not going to make your life better because they can't.  Their lives are probably not all that hunky-dory.  You are in charge of your own life, as we all are.  You're much better equipped, you're much better able to make the most of your life than anybody else is, including your wife, your husband, your kids.  You do it.  This is not a sin.  It's called greatness.  It's the root to greatness.  It's called individual responsibility.  Liberalism erases any notion of individual responsibility, and thus you have a community like New Orleans when a natural disaster hits, of people who have no clue what to do, they have no way to get out.  They had no liberal city government that forced them to get out, for their own good.  And then when what happened happened, bammo, you blame the federal government, which never succeeds at this kind of thing anyway.  

It just grates on me to have a McCain advisor pick up the liberal Democrat theme that the problem in New Orleans was the federal government and that McCain is going to make it all better.  New Orleans is a city more than any other in the country that signifies to the American people what's broken about our government -- yes, in a way.  What's broken about our government and institutions is they're too big, too unruly, too much political correctness, too much paperwork, too much sitting around talking and not enough action.  But all that would be obviated, unnecessary, if the people of New Orleans had not lived under 60 years of dictatorial liberal rule and had had the ability to fend for themselves.  The ones that got out of there, that had the means to get out of there, knew something the others didn't.  Then to go on and say the reality is that Senator McCain has disagreed on issue after issue with President Bush over the last eight years, he's his own man, as though that's a badge of honor?  He didn't say that kind of thing during the nomination process, did he?  Neither McCain nor his aides are out there running around saying, (doing McCain impression) "I'm going to be different. I'm not going to be like Bush. I'm not going to be like Bush. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to be my own man, Limbaugh, yes."  

You don't have to throw the president of your own party under the bus, Mr. Schmidt. You just don't have to do it in a campaign against the most liberal Democrat socialist the Democrats have ever nominated.  You don't have to throw the president of your own party under the bus.  If you find that you must distance yourself from him, find a way that does not incorporate the language of the left; that does not appeal to Democrats, because you're going to find out that George Bush isn't hated.  People may disapprove of his job, but they do not dislike him.  And whatever else, Senator McCain and the rest of you people in his campaign think about George W. Bush, the one thing you can't question is his love for the country and his desire to keep it safe.  He may have gone off the path now and then on some of these social things with the Medicare plan and letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill, that's how he governed in Texas, but you cannot in any way, shape, manner, or form attack George W. Bush's patriotism or his desire to keep this country safe.  

We do have those questions about Obama.  We do have questions about his foreign policy based on his own words and what it will mean for this country.  And you, Senator McCain, you do not have to draw distinctions with yourself on President Bush on national security, defending the country, and loving it.  And this is not helping you.  You are not going to get Obama votes doing this. You are not going to get Democrat votes by saying, "Hey, hey, hey, we're not George Bush the third.  We've disagreed with Bush on a lot of things."  That sounds defensive.  I still have one more sound bite to go from this guy, Steve Schmidt.  John Roberts says, "Campaign: People have written of the ability of Senator McCain that he's run for the right, and they're wondering when we're going to see this maverick, that independent, like so much out there on the campaign trail."

SCHMIDT:  When this war was going so badly, the one person in America who stood up and said we're losing this war, we have to change the strategy, he was attacked mercilessly for disloyalty by saying that things were going badly.  That person was John McCain.  When we look at the energy bill that Vice President Cheney was a great supporter of in 2005, the giveaway to the oil companies, Senator Obama supported it, Senator McCain voted against it.  Senator McCain is going to talk about his views, his vision, and a lot of times those views and that vision is different than the president's policy.

RUSH:  Yeah, and you're going to make a big deal out of that.  When this war was going so badly, the one person in America who stood up and said we're losing, we have to change the strategy was McCain?  There were a lot more than Senator McCain standing up and suggesting that we couldn't afford to lose.  When we look at the energy bill that Vice President Cheney was a great supporter of in 2005, a giveaway to the oil companies, McCain voted against it?  What's the giveaway?  The continuation of the tax breaks that the oil companies get for research and development?  What's McCain said, he doesn't like excess profits anywhere, when he's never made a profit?  Does he dislike excess profits in beer, I wonder?  Should we stop drilling for beer?  Should we stop making beer because the environmental damage it causes?  I've seen beer smokestacks.  I'm going to tell all of you Republicans, not just Senator McCain, if you think that you can make hay and be reelected by running around trashing your own president, the president of your party, who is far more beloved than Senator McCain is in this party -- he may not be popular nationwide, he may not be popular in these polls, but he is not disliked.  He is not considered disloyal.  He is not considered somebody who goes against the interests of his own party for his own personal benefit.  

If you run around and you make a big deal out of trying to distance yourself from George W. Bush, you are going to pay for it in ways that you can't understand, because the one thing, of many, that separates Republicans and conservatives from those mealymouthed little creeps and kooks and wackos on the left, they respect a leader who they think has done his best.  And they are loyal.  And the one person, the one thing that is threatening Republican Party loyalty right now is the very McCain campaign, not George W. Bush.  So if you think that you gotta run around and distance yourself from George W. Bush, and if that's how you have to get elected, think again.  You may not have to run around and embrace him, and you may not want to run around and have him fund-raise for you in public, and you may not want to be seen in public with him, and you may not want to have to praise him, but I warn you, do not publicly disrespect him.  It will kill you.  You won't go anywhere.  The voters on our side are not going to put up with that because he's not disliked, he's not despised, he's not hated.  You Republicans that don't have the guts and the courage to separate yourself from what you read in the media and listen to the Democrat candidates say had better realize, this president is not hated, he is not disliked.  Big difference in that and being unpopular.  

If you don't have the ability to read the news or watch television and understand the bilge and the drivel and the propaganda that you are hearing, if you have no more ability to separate yourself from the doom and gloom that the American people have trouble separating themselves from, you're not worthy of being elected.  We expect elected people to watch the news and go on television, "This is garbage, this is crap what you people are reporting to the American people," about global warming, about whatever the story is, about losing in Iraq when we're winning.  This tiptoeing through the tulips in fear about worrying what people are going to think of you because you're Republican and you're associated with Bush, I'm telling you, the more you sidle up to the Drive-By Media portrayal of things and try to reflect that, the American people, you're going to find out how hated the media is, too, and you're going to be just as despised, and you're going to be sitting there wondering what happened the day after the election, why you lost, because you'll have been told by your consultants to do what you've done rather than follow your instincts, which should tell you to be loyal to your party, positive about the country, energetic about our future.  But if you think the way to get to voters is to harp on failure and doom and gloom and distance yourself from the president by trashing him and claiming you're not him, you're going to come off as a childish, immature Eddie Haskell, and people don't elect Eddie Haskells.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Our buddies at NewsMax have a story from yesterday: "Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said that several years ago John McCain came close to leaving the Republican Party and caucusing with Senate Democrats."  I had people send me this story today and say, "I never knew that."  What do you mean you never knew that?  We talked about it on the program at the time.  He's the one that sought out John Kerry about possibly being his vice presidential running mate in 2004.  Daschle was on Meet the Press with Russert, and "Daschle said in February, 'It's true that we were once close to bringing John McCain into the Democratic caucus. There are many who can verify that.' Russert asked, 'John McCain almost became a Democrat?'  Daschle answered: 'Never a Democrat, but an independent. He was so angry at the way he was treated and the problems he had with the Bush administration in 2001, Tim, that he came to us and said, "Look, I'm seriously considering becoming an independent and caucusing with you. Let's talk about it." And we did.'"  This is our nominee this year.  

(playing of McCain spoof song)

June 25, 2008

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Tony in Palm Harbor, Florida, I'm glad you waited.  Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER:  Rush, how you doing man?

RUSH:  Fine, sir.

CALLER:  I just wanted to ask you to please back off on John McCain a little bit simply because the judicial system is at stake.  We can't afford Barack Obama and his Marxist friends appointing judges to the Supreme Court.  It will be a Marxist judicial tyranny, a Marxist dictatorship from the bench, man.  They'll overturn results of elections.  They won't respect freedom of speech, private property, and freedom of religion, so just back off on John McCain a little bit, man.  He's got a 22-year run of being solid pro-life.  Do like Herman Edwards, the head coach of the KC Chiefs said, "Play to win the game." Rush, let's play to win the game.  Get him elected, get rid of this Obama.

RUSH:  Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait just a second.  In the first thing, the court doesn't respect a whole lot of those things you mentioned a moment ago anyway.

CALLER:  We don't need any more of it.

RUSH:  I understand that.  But you're going to cite Herman Edwards?

CALLER:  I'm just asking you to play the game to win so we can win this thing, Rush.  Then after the election you can say what you want about him, but right now let's win this thing.

RUSH:  Wait a minute, what have I been doing?  How am I hurting McCain?

CALLER:  Rush, you come up, you make fun of McCain with that growl like he's insane, when you mimic him and joke about him.  We can't go in the tank with Coulter, Barr, and Dobson, and hand the judicial system over to this clown.  There's too much at stake here.  After the election, say what you want to say.

RUSH:  You haven't been listening closely enough.

CALLER:  I've been listening very closely.

RUSH:  Well, you haven't heard me say, then, that we can't afford Obama.

CALLER:  I know that.

RUSH:  Well.

CALLER:  I understand that.  But what I'm basically asking you to say, underlying that, is please back off on John McCain.  That's all I'm asking you to do, man.

RUSH:  What am I supposed to do when the guy stands up and starts talking -- see, here I go -- when the guy stands up and starts talking about green government --

CALLER:  I agree with you on all that.

RUSH:  Jimmy Carter 2.

CALLER:  Rush, I agree with all that.  

RUSH:  I have experience crossing the aisle working with Democrats, what am I supposed to do, go, "Yay"?

CALLER:  Rush, I agree with all that.

RUSH:  Well, then?

CALLER:  So do it after he gets, God willing, elected.  We can't afford this guy economically, and we can't afford him judicially.

RUSH:  Don't you understand what's happening here?

CALLER:  I know that global warming is a crock of crap, but right now the judicial system is the most important thing we've got.

RUSH:  Don't you think I know that?

CALLER:  -- pro-abortion judge, man.

RUSH:  Don't you think I know that?

CALLER:  Play to win the game, Rush, it's all I'm asking.

RUSH:  Wait!

CALLER:  Just get on the team and --

RUSH:  What do you think Operation Chaos--

CALLER:  -- get rid of this sucker, man.

RUSH:  Tony, calm down man, what do you think the purpose of Operation Chaos was?

CALLER:  It was brilliant, I loved Operation Chaos.

RUSH:  So we win was the bottom line, so we win to create chaos in the Democrat Party.  Do you know what's going on here?

CALLER:  Go ahead.

RUSH:  Do you know what I'm actually trying to do here?

CALLER:  All I hear you do is knock John McCain with mimicking his voice like he's some kind of insane character who just got out of the nuthouse.

RUSH:  Well... (laughing)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to our last caller, Tony from Palm Harbor, Florida.  He was all over me.  You people heard it.  I was sitting here minding my own business, I wasn't bothering anybody, and I came under assault from a caller, a friendly caller, but nevertheless I was under assault.  You all heard it.  And what did Tony say?  He said, "You gotta back off on McCain.  You gotta stop making him sound like he's lunatic that just got out of the asylum. You can do that after he's elected.  The Supreme Court's too important.  We gotta change this court."  And I asked Tony, I said, "Do you understand what's going on here?  Do you know what I'm doing?"  I don't want to be blatant and bold about it.  Sort of like a marketing plan, you don't tell anybody about it, just execute it.  Some people have figured out what my game plan is on this.  Others haven't.  If you haven't, you're going to continue to be confused and think I'm obnoxious.  Others of you will praise my brilliance.  But I want to say again, I want to take a little bit more time doing it here for Tony in Palm Harbor and all the rest of you who believe that this election is crucial about the Supreme Court.  It's crucial about everything.  That is why -- (breathing hard) -- that is why there has been so much passion about this from the Republican primaries to the present.  

Now, when it comes to Supreme Court justices, John McCain does not appoint them.  He nominates them.  And then you know what happens?  Then Patrick Leahy and his Democrats get hold of them at the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Yeah, who we got on there?  We've got Biden, we've got Durbin, we got Senator Kennedy, we got Senator Feinstein; we've got the usual suspects on the Democrat side.  Let me just tell you, Tony, if the Democrats expand their majorities in both the House and the Senate as current polling suggests they will, it isn't going to matter who McCain nominates.  He could nominate the most brilliant conservative jurist who has a flawless resume and reputation.  He doesn't stand a prayer.  The Senate confirms justices.  We would have more conservatives on the appellate court today but for the Gang of 14.  If we could have pulled the nuclear option, got rid of this filibustering, we wouldn't be where we are today on all this.  Let's not pretend all this gets fixed in this election.  

I would suggest, Tony, and many of the rest of you that one of the reasons Senator McCain has moved on anything during this campaign is because I and some others have continued to point out where McCain is moving too far left.  For example, he was praised mightily by me on this program for doing a 180 on offshore drilling.  If he would just go to ANWR, just go up there and learn that it's not the Grand Canyon and then change his mind on that, we would have a huge difference in which to contrast ourselves from the Democrats.  There's no better issue than gas prices, supply and demand.  The Democrats are making this so simple, and yet we need to stop all this talk about greening the government and this stuff.  People don't care about that right now.  They care about the gasoline price, and they're sophisticated enough to understand that the Democrats are standing in the way of doing anything that lowers the price.  We got a made-to-order issue here.  It's just waiting to be teed up.  If I were to just sit here and cheerlead every day, it wouldn't work.  I'd lose half my audience because I'd lose my credibility.  

This election, yeah, it's about the courts; it's about capitalism; it's about individual liberty; it's about the detainees, the war on terror.  It's about a lot of things.  If Congress passes a massive regulatory bill that expands government like never before in the name of dealing with global warming, the court doesn't have to do anything, Tony.  If Obama and his gang get their way on this, we are going to have the most devastating attack on limited government in 70 years.  I shouldn't challenge this?  And one other thing?  I'm addressing this because Tony might have articulated -- well, in fact, I know he did because I've had similar calls in the recent past from people who have also said, "Take it easy on McCain."  And I've even had people out in public when I have not been on the air, "Can you kind of take it easy on McCain?"  Why should I have to change?  No, I'm serious.  Why should I have to change?  Why should I have to sweep my principles aside or under the desk, why is that up to me to do that?  I know you don't like it when I say "you people."  You know who you are.  You should have thought about all this when you're out there voting for Huckabee.  You should have thought about all this when you saw McCain and Huckabee teaming up to screw all the other nominees in our party. 

You're calling me telling me I gotta bite the bullet.  Why don't you call McCain's office and tell him he drop this environmental BS instead of demanding that I drop my principles?  It's probably easier getting through to the McCain office than it is getting through to me.  It will take you a lot less time getting through to them than it is me.  But seriously, why should I change?  I know what you're saying.  I have empathy.  "Rush, you don't have to change, but you don't have to destroy the guy's chances."  We're doing just the opposite here, folks.  You think I want Obama elected?  Get real.  We can't afford this guy. I don't care how you calculate how you afford something.  We can't afford our liberty; we can't afford economically; we cannot afford this guy.  We cannot afford this guy with the massive majorities he's going to have in the House and the Senate, in any number of ways.  But at the same time, it's not just McCain on the ballot.  There's a whole bunch of Republicans and conservatives out there who look to get swamped right now unless something's done, and they are Republicans, and do you see any coattails here?

There's a lot at stake here, and the solution to it is simply not defeating Obama.  That's a big part of it.  But people just like Obama are going to be running the House and the Senate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  This is Dawn in Indianapolis.  Welcome to the program.  It's nice to have you here.

CALLER:  Thank you, Rush.  I wanted to respond to the gentleman who was on near the top of the hour.

RUSH:  That would be the guy from Palm Harbor, Florida, Tony; who was giving me some constructive criticism on Senator McCain.

CALLER:  Okay.  Well, I think Tony's been drinking the Republican water that for the past 30 years, conservatives have been told, "Just vote Republican and we'll get the court back." Well, as of right now, seven of the nine judges were nominated by Republicans.

RUSH:  Yes, that's true.

CALLER:  On the Supreme Court.

RUSH:  That's true.

CALLER:  So how many Republican judges do we need to get conservatives on there?

RUSH:  Well, they were nominated by Republicans but not conservatives.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  That's a big difference.

CALLER:  Okay, well, then we keep getting them. But what is McCain? (laughs)

RUSH:  I know. We've been here, done this.  I know what you're saying. There's no guarantee here. Gang of 14, desire to please the left, the left is running the show anyway.  Yes, the ingredients are all there for disaster, but we are trying to thwart this.  I'm sure you understand that.

CALLER:  I know, but what guarantees do I have that McCain can't do any better than Bush or Reagan?

RUSH:  That's not the way to being look at this, honestly.  No, no, it's not.  The way to look at this is, very simply: Do you want Obama appointing them?

CALLER:  Well, Stevens who you were saying was nominated by Ford, so...

RUSH:  These are the choices we have, right now. It's too late to complain about the choices.  The choice is McCain or Obama.  (doing McCain impression) "I knew you'd come around, Limbaugh! I knew you'd see it someday."

CALLER: (giggles)

RUSH:  And so --

CALLER:  Well, what guarantees do I have that McCain is going to do any better than Obama?

RUSH:  You don't have guarantees about anything, but common sense here should tell you that Obama--

CALLER:  It's going to be bad, I agree.

RUSH:  It's disaster.  It is going to be a literal disaster.

CALLER:  So Obama's fast disaster and McCain is slow disaster?

RUSH:  Well (laughing), no. I've not reached this fatalistic point that you have seemed to have arrived at here, Dawn.  I'm not there yet.  It's not over.  Even after the election, nothing's ever over!  There is no end.  Nothing ever ends.  We just think it does.  We want it to end, so we say, "Okay, this is over," but it's not over.  These kind of things are never over.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  Even when you lose you still have a chance of turning it around and win.  Loss is not final. Defeat is never the end.

CALLER:  Except it seems to me we got a lose-lose situation. (laughing)

RUSH:  We gotta lose-lose situation?

CALLER:  Either candidate, we lose.

RUSH:  (laughing) I know. I know. I know.

END TRANSCRIPT