This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” Nov. 12, 2004, that has been edited for clarity.
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SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: We now turn our focus to the world of politics and last week’s election. And joining us now, author of “The New Strong-Willed Child” and founder and chairman of Focus on the Family , our good friend, Dr. James Dobson is back with us.
Dr. Dobson thanks for being with us, appreciate you being onboard. You know, I hold up my little red map, a county-by-county map, and this is a very red country, Dr. Dobson. And that — it’s very interesting, Charles Krauthammer, who is a frequent guest on “Special Report with Brit Hume,” had a great column today, and he talked about how back in ’94 when the Republicans took over Congress for the first time in 40 years, the liberals in the media kept referring to “angry white men.” Now this selection has become the “bigoted Christian redneck.” And you’ve heard a lot of these criticisms in the voting and everything, and this “red America, Jesus land.” What are your thoughts on the way people are reacting to the election?
DR. JAMES DOBSON, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: Well, Sean, there is always a spin, there is always a backlash, there is always an effort to marginalize the conservative that’s been elected. They did that to Ronald Reagan, they did it to George Bush, and they’re doing it to George Bush — George W. Bush. So I don’t take that too seriously.
HANNITY: Yeah, well I’m a Christian. I think some of these comments are anti-Christian. I think there’s an anti-Christian bias here. Am I reading this right?
DOBSON: Yes. I think that there is, and there has been through all of this. And the anger that’s being expressed now, I mean, people who voted for Bush are called “stupid.” Imagine — imagine calling 53 percent or however percentage it was, of the American people “stupid.” That just shows the arrogance of the people on the other side.
HANNITY: What do you make, for example, of Maureen Dowd saying “W. ran a jihad in America, so he could run a jihad in Iraq, drawing a devoted flock of Evangelicals of value voters– as they call themselves– to the polls, opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research, supporting constitutional amendment against gay marriage.” Similar comments from Carl Bernstein and Sidney Blumenthal and many, many others.
DOBSON: That’s just dripping with hostility, Sean. And, but what do you expect from Maureen Dowd? I mean, that’s the kind of stuff she writes, that’s who she is, that’s what she believes. And, the truth of the matter is, you know, this is not a monolith for a country. The vote was not exactly the same, made up of exactly the same kind of people. There were–was a variety of viewpoints represented there. But they’re no doubt about the fact that the conservative Christian perspective played a very key role in this election.
COLMES: You know, Dr. Dobson, it’s Alan, good to have you back on the show. Welcome back.
DOBSON: Thank you, Alan.
COLMES: Do you think it was indeed moral values that won it for George W. Bush?
DOBSON: They’re no question about it. My take on it is that people who are hard-working, middle American, mostly, who care about their families and care about moral values often go to church on Sunday, have been watching what’s been going on in this country. They’ve seen the moral decline, they’ve seen what’s happening in the schools, they’ve seen what’s happening especially in Hollywood, and the entertainment industry, and then they saw what Massachusetts tried to do to the family. They were very alarmed by that. And we’re not just talking about Evangelicals, they’re Catholics, mainline Christians, people with no faith at all, but hold those views. And when they got an opportunity, they said enough is enough.
COLMES: Let me go back to the Charles Krauthammer column. Which I agree with Sean, was a terrific column, today. But he goes on to point out that moral values encompasses a group of issues, and they were pitted on — up against individual issues, like the war in Iraq. As a group of issues, moral values can be different things to different people. Moral values could mean not going into Iraq, not having war, and so to extrapolate and say that that there — therefore, meant those people were voting for Bush for that reason, may not be accurate.
DOBSON: Well, I think the polls show that it was accurate and there are values that matter most, and one of them is marriage. I have no doubt whatsoever about the fact that the issue of marriage, of the effort to impose same-sex marriage on this country and on the family, especially by the courts, who are unelected and unaccountable and who are arrogant and determined to impose their views on us, that stuck in the hearts of the people, and when they got an opportunity, they expressed themselves at the polls.
COLMES: Well, one of the other things Charles Krauthammer points out, which is on the gay issue, in the 11 states in which gay marriage referendums were held, President Bush increased his vote by less than he did in the 39 states that did not have the referendum, and in Ohio increased it maybe by less than one percent. So those statistics don’t bear out the idea that it was gay marriage that put it over the top for President Bush.
DOBSON: Alan, you can make statistics jump through hoops! All I can tell you is that 11 out of 11 states voted overwhelmingly for traditional marriage. And prior to that, starting back in 1998, six others have done so. They’re 17 out of 17. And there’s now a spate of states, right now, that are planning to do the same thing. And there’s no contest. I mean, it goes all the way from 58 percent in Oregon as a victory, all the way to 86 percent in Mississippi. So, there is no doubt about the fact the American people care about traditional marriage between one man and one woman, and I don’t care how much the media tries to spin that with statistics and all kinds of crazy ideas, that’s where we are as a country.
HANNITY: All right, we’ve got to take a break. We’re going have more with Dr. James Dobson coming up after the break as we continue with “Hannity & Colmes.” Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLMES: Welcome back to “Hannity & Colmes.” I’m Alan Colmes. We now continue with the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson.
Dr. Dobson, before we call it “spin” or attack the messenger on this issue of gay marriage and your presumption that it’s that that may have put it over the top for George W. Bush, I want to point out that in the upcoming Sunday edition of the “New York Times,” columnist Frank Rich points out, and he’s quoting statistics here, “The same poll that clocked moral values at 22 percent of the electorate found that nearly three times as many Americans approve of some form of legal status for gay couples, whether civil unions, 35 percent, or marriage, 27 percent.” Most people want some kind of arrangement for people of the same sex who choose to get married. And that is what the polls show. You may not agree with the source, you may not agree with the messenger. But many Americans would like some status for these people.
DOBSON: Well, many Americans, most Americans, are fair-minded and they’re trying as best they can to work through some of the troubling issues here. But they don’t want marriage messed with. And Alan, you know, Frank Rich and the “New York Times,” who would not be at the top of my list to get my information…
COLMES: They’re reporting fact, let’s not blame the messenger. They are reporting the polls that were taken. You can blame the messenger or you can decide that they’re factual.
DOBSON: Well, there are some messengers who are kind of off the wall and Frank Rich is one of them.
COLMES: Well, those are the same polls he’s quoting that talked about that so many Americans believed in moral values, so you want to believe part of the poll, but not other parts of it.
DOBSON: Well, there are many polls and especially the election that tell us where the American people are.
Alan, I don’t want to sound like a prophet here, but we saw this coming. I mean, people have been saying to us for many, many months that they were very, very concerned about this out-of-control court. After Lawrence vs. Texas, Justice Kennedy made it clear that as soon as they get an opportunity with a case coming to them that they’re going to discover a constitutional right to gay marriage and then Massachusetts jumped the gun and did it, that scared people.
HANNITY: Look Dr. Dobson, I’m a good friend of Alan here, and his little liberal friends over at the “New York Times”…
COLMES: Big liberal friends.
HANNITY: You know, all right. But if this is what — if this is how they’re reading their polls, that they think the American people want gay marriage, civil unions, partial birth abortion, don’t want parental notification, and yet, they want to be — they don’t understand why they’re out of touch with American values, that’s fine with me, because they will never win an election again. Let them — let them believe that. That’s a good thing for us, I think.
DOBSON: Yeah, I think so, too. The — this country is moving in a conservative direction. There is simply no doubt about that. And if you look at that map you’re talking about, I wish everybody in this country saw that map, because it shows that it is red. And it’s not the one that you’re showing there. It’s the one’s by counties which shows…
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I have it on my Web site, Hannity.com, because…
DOBSON: Just a little blue edge over on the coast and then down in south…
HANNITY: It’s like Alan over here, and then….
COLMES: I’m actually physically on that map, myself. It’s amazing.
HANNITY: Let me read a quote to you, if I can, and we don’t have a lot of time here. And this is from [former Washington Post Carl Bernstein, he said, “We have a minority religious group who want to impose their religious values on a secular country that has separation of church and state.” And he goes on, “I think what is dangerous is we’re fighting a war against fundamentalism that we must win, and if we become fundamentalists and try and establish values in our own country while trying to fight fundamentalist Muslim people who want to kill us, I think that’s a terrible thing.” This is how some of these so-called journalists and pundits are seeing this. They can’t be more wrong.
JOHNSON: Isn’t that amazing? This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It’s a government where we have a right to express our views, all people from all ends of the spectrum. And yet those that hold conservative views are somehow called nasty names: Jihadists. They’re somehow equating with those that bomb people.
COLMES: Thank god we liberals are never called names by conservatives, we really appreciate that. We’ll be right back with Dr. Dobson on the other side of the break. Stay with us on “Hannity & Colmes.”
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: As we continue on “Hannity & Colmes,” I’m Sean Hannity. Continuing now with Dr. James Dobson.
Dr. Dobson, this battle over the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter. You’ve been pretty outspoken. Your thoughts on where we are at this point?
DOBSON: I’m very, very concerned about the possibility of Senator Specter being chairman of the Judiciary Committee because as such, he will have enormous power to stand in the roadway and block most of what — most of the social agenda that President Bush has promised to work for. Not only the judges, but he is — you know, rabidly pro-choice, he is against the federal marriage amendment…
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Will you try and stop it? Are you working with others to try and prevent him from getting that position?
DOBSON: Let me as it right now, let me look right in that camera and ask your listeners to call every Republican senator, they’ve been very, very quiet about this. Get them on the record as to who they feel about Senator Specter taking the most powerful position…
COLMES: I thought Republicans were a big-tent party. What happened? You blamed Democrats when (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Bob Casey, the former governor of Pennsylvania speak at a convention, but you’re not allowed to have a senator who may be pro-choice, even though he’s voted to confirm anti- choice judges.
DOBSON: Yeah. Alan, have you ever called me a big-tenter? You think that’s what I believe?
COLMES: You don’t believe?
DOBSON: That’s what I work for?
COLMES: You don’t want to be in a big tent for the party? You don’t want that?
DOBSON: I don’t want to be in the big tent. No.– I think the party ought to stand for something.
COLMES: All right.
DOBSON: And especially, you don’t put a man who is opposed to the president, after he won this mandate, in a position to contradict everything he’s trying to do.
COLMES: I think a big tent’s good for the party. Just like it’s good for mine, but we may disagree again, Dr. Dobson.
DOBSON: I guess so.
HANNITY: What a shock. All right, Dr. Dobson, we’ll be talking to you hopefully often, and appreciate you being with us once again. Thanks for being onboard.
DOBSON: Thank you gentlemen.
HANNITY: All right, that is all the time — by the way, I’ll see you in Colorado Springs in a week, Dr. Dobson. And that is all the time we have left this evening, by the way.
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