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Aug. 5, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:18
August 5, 2005, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Boy, a fastest three hours in media.
Here we are already at the final hour of the Excellence in Broadcasting Network this week.
I mean, time flies when you're having fun, and there's no faster time spent in media than with the EIB network.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
And looking forward to talking to you all for a remaining hour today.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIB net.com.
Basically, Open Line Friday is uh Well, I mean, let's be honest.
I'm taking one of the greatest career risks known to exist in uh major media today.
And that is turning over uh portion of the content of the program to uh rank amateurs.
And that's not a put down.
I mean, uh there's one highly trained broadcast specialist here, and that's me.
And everybody else is an amateur, but but but I look forward to it.
I uh whatever it is that's on your mind, feel free.
If you think there's something that needs to be discussed that hasn't been.
Then as they say, give us a buzz.
Again, the number's 800 282-2882.
All right, so I um I uh this is Zawahiri tape.
Aimon Al Zawahiri, number two to Osama bin Laden, a gutless thug coward.
As I said yesterday, nobody, nobody that doesn't have the guts to face their own people, shouldn't be given a free pass and worldwide coverage of their silly little cowardly made tapes.
But of course, it's all it takes, Zawahiri to make a tape.
Somehow Al Jazeera gets hold of it, and bam, all the world hears about it, and then everybody goes, oh no, no, Zawahiri made on the tape like he's saying his US is next and and Britain, and oh no, they're gonna be more explosives.
What are we gonna do?
And it just burns me up.
Well, it burned me up so much I didn't care what he had to say yesterday, frankly, folks.
Didn't matter to me.
When I heard them analyzing how crisp his shirt was, how cleanly pressed his shirt was, and how cool he looked in the hot sun, and how groomed he was and the different headdress he had made me want to throw up.
Who cares?
So it wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I actually heard something that this clown said.
He said that Iraq will end up as another Vietnam if we don't get out of there.
Well, hell's bells, folks.
Now we've got Zawahiri using Democrat talking points.
We had Obama Osama, whatever his name is Bin Laden doing talking points.
Remember that tape of his that came out the last week of the election last year?
That seemed like it came right out of Kerry campaign, and the Kerry campaign thought so too.
That's why they try to disavow it and blame it on Rove.
Remember, well, you don't you you don't remember, but Walter Cronkite, in a moment of senility or sanity, whatever, went on Larry King and said, I actually think the White House involved with uh Carl Rouve, you know.
So um Rove produced the bin Logan tape.
Here's Zawahiri out there now, spouting Democrat talking points for crying out.
How must this make Ted Kennedy or Dick Durbin of these guys feel when the number two guy to bin Laden sounds just like them?
I guess is they're probably going, yeah, you keep talking, pal.
I'm sure they're they're urging him on.
And I I just was livid when I heard that too.
I have to tell you, giving this guy all this propaganda time.
All right, Robert Novak has apologized.
But to me, that's not the story.
The story is what I'm holding here in my formerly Nick Athenian paper.
First the story.
Robert Novak apologized Friday for swearing on the air and walking off a CNN set.
By the way, um, I think it's now official there are no more conservatives at CNN.
I think this does it.
I think this takes care of it now.
No more conservatives left at CNN.
Robert Novak apologized Friday for swearing on the air and walking off a CNN set, but said it had nothing to do with the federal probe sparked by his revelation of a CIA officer's name in the 2003 column.
He said, I apologize for my conduct and I'm sorry I did it.
See the CNN's pulled him off the air indefinitely.
Novak said I'll follow their guidance on when he returns.
Somebody at Fox called the guy.
You know, get him over there at Fox.
Get rid of it.
Let Marvin Calb go over to CNN.
Uh He said, but this this business of uh Valerie Playmat had nothing to do with it.
Absolutely nothing.
I was sorry he said that, meaning the anchor of the program, Ed Henry.
But okay, so Novak's apologized.
I he apologize for the swear word.
I I don't think he cracked.
I don't think he, I don't think it well, whatever the adjectives are going around yesterday.
I I can totally understand it.
But a lot of people have been thinking, why go on these programs in the first place, Bob?
But that's not story.
This is an AP story that I shared with you from the website.
Or from the internet.
It's actually from the Yahoo website.
And of course, AP has a picture.
The Associated Press has a picture accompanying the story of Novak and his apology.
And guess who's in the picture?
It's Novak and Carl Rove.
You people in the main street press, you are so easy.
Listen to the caption.
In this photograph taken in June 2003, it's two years ago, two years ago photo.
Carl Rove, senior advisor to President Bush, and Robert Novak are pictured together at a party marking the 40th anniversary of Novak's column at the Army Navy Club in Washington.
Novak was suspended indefinitely by CNN after he swore and walked off the set during a debate with James Carville.
The exchange came on CNN's inside edition during a discussion of Florida Senate campaign.
What does Carl Rove have to do with this?
Zilch, folks, Zilt Zero Nada.
A two-year-old picture picturing Novak with Rove.
And of course, the first half of the caption is about Rove.
It's just classic.
Now, I I want to get back to this gasoline business because I uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh was a bit flippant uh with a with a caller from um was it Farmington, New Mexico.
And her name was Elizabeth.
And she was upset that the price of gasoline.
And I and I I wasn't flippant in the well, I was flippant.
And there, but there are we had a call from an Exxon stack station owner uh uh and what was his name?
I'm having a I'm having a brief middle blog on his name.
Uh Brett, what was the Exxon gas station owner's name?
Uh okay, well, whatever.
This guy is a good thing he called this program because if he'd have called a liberal program, he would have been blamed for part of the problem for owning a gas station, polluting the planet and all that.
He called the right place.
He made a point, all of these different formulations and gasoline that the EPA requires, you don't know how much that adds to the price of gasoline, folks.
It's phenomenal.
40, over 40 blends required in this country.
California has its own.
I think Southern California has its own versus Northern California.
So if you run out in a particular region of the country, you just can't go get it from anywhere else.
You have to get the same formulation.
Otherwise you are in violation of the law.
And the uh the the costs mount, you know, we don't have any new refineries in what, 20 years, haven't built any new refineries in 20 years, can't go out and war and drill for our own oil.
But there's a there's a uh website out there that's an inflation calculator, basically.
1974, um everything it was Joe in Ramsey, New Jersey.
That's right.
As I said, good thing he called this program.
If he'd have called some other program, he'd have been hung up on and shouted at and vilified and insulted for participating and causing the problem as a gas station owner.
How dare he?
This website calculates the inflation.
Whatever it was that cost one dollar in 1974 would cost about $3.10 or 20 cents today.
So gasoline uh price is still way below that.
Uh so the the inflation rate still exceeds the price of gasoline.
Doesn't matter.
Real terms, it's up there and it affects everybody's back pocket.
So what are the things that can be done about this?
Uh well, you wouldn't believe the number of taxes that are in a gallon of gasoline.
And uh it's just like you wouldn't believe the taxes in your phone bill.
You really you you you know you are still paying taxes in your phone bill to make sure that farmers have phones?
The rural collective phone tax, you're also still paying a tax in your phone bill for those buildings that Clinton and Gore personally wired for the internet.
Well, it's no different with gasoline.
There are there are so many taxes in a gallon of gasoline, and if all these politicians were that concerned about the economic impact, ladies and gentlemen, the price of gasoline, they could they could uh temporarily suspend some of these taxes.
They could permanently cut some of these taxes.
Oh no, but they won't do that because there's one thing government will never do without.
And there's one thing that government will never even do less of, and that's money.
Well, yes, when we when when our taxes are raised, they don't give one thought to whether or not we can absorb it and afford it.
But when tax cuts are proposed, the people in the government, well, how are we gonna pay for this?
Well, how are we gonna pay for it?
How are we gonna make it up for this?
We can't do without that.
But we're expected to.
Everybody else is expected to.
So the next time you hear some politician trying to get on your good side by belly aching and moaning about the price of gasoline, why don't you ask him, why don't you do something about it then?
Since we can't do anything about imports right now, since we can't go into an war, since we can't drill anywhere else, and since we have all these stupid, silly different formulations, why don't you just temporarily suspend some of the taxes and gasoline?
Just ask them that.
If you're really concerned, if you really want to help us in the back pocket, really want to help us at the family dinner table, really want to help us out here with the family economics and the income.
Just get rid of some of the taxes in it.
It's not that hard to do.
And you just watch their reaction.
Well, uh, we need a majority to do that.
I don't know what kind of legislation that would require.
It's a good idea, put it in a hopper, I'll throw it around with my staff.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
But nothing will ever happen on it.
As uh as I wrote, uh, ladies and gentlemen, in the recent issue of the Limbaugh Letter, uh, no oil shortage was the title of this uh of this article.
Let me just read to you what I wrote, the final graph.
Also, as I've been telling you, the futures market has had a significant effect on gasoline prices.
Prices are clearly advancing because of rampant speculation, says industry analyst Michael Fitzpatrick, according to um Air Finance Journal.
And Julian Strithharno of Capital Economics says the degree of speculation in the present markets, this is the oil markets, has been underestimated as an important component in present prices.
And if you if you go look at the uh the the fet the latest federal budget figures as they put them out periodically, you'll find that the actual cost of a barrel of gasoline is nowhere near this 60 bucks.
60 bucks is the futures price because you got people betting on it one way or the other.
But the bottom line is here that it we're in for a bit of an oil futures bubble.
Uh what we need to do is uh precisely nothing because capitalism eventually corrects itself.
Now there are there are you know tough times and it is stressful and painful, and there are immediate steps people can take like getting rid of some of those taxes, but uh they won't do it.
No, you'll hear democracy we need to release some of the oil in the in the strategic petroleum reserve, we need to get smaller cars, we need hybrids, we need uh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What was that statistic we heard yesterday about hybrids?
That if if, oh, here I know what it is, if miraculously tomorrow.
Get this, folks.
Heard this from an automobile company executive who are you know, these people they're interested in selling hybrids because there's a there's a there's the demand.
If all 220 vehicles in the United States were automatically made hybrid vehicles tomorrow.
Hmm?
220 million, 220 million, all 220 million vehicles in America were made hybrid vehicles tomorrow.
It would only take six years for us to be racked right where we are today in terms of gas supply price, usage, and all that.
The point is that everybody going hybrid is not gonna save that much fuel.
It'll only take six years to get us back to right where we are today in current usage levels.
If every car were a hybrid tomorrow, we'd be right back in six years where we are today in terms of how much we consume.
How much fuel we consume.
There is no question about it.
So don't even buy that that's silly argument.
It's not about conservation, it's about production.
It's a growing economy.
Growing means producing.
We got to go find more supply, and there's plenty of oil out there.
Don't let anybody tell you there's not.
Quick timeout, we'll be back.
Stay with us.
All right, let's go to the phones.
Uh, John in Chicago.
I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the VIP network.
Hello, Rush.
Nice talking to you.
Um friends of mine who are Democrats can't answer this, and maybe you can't.
Oil prices have gone from $30 a barrel to $60 a barrel.
Yet the American economy keeps growing and growing and growing to the point where Greenspan has to increase interest rates so we don't have any inflation.
Unemployment's 5%, real wages were announced today up again.
The last two years there's been a hundred billion dollar reductions, reductions, Rush, in the in the uh deficits.
And they get I asked my Democratic friends, how can this be?
How can this be?
And I I don't get an answer.
And I simply say market economy forces and tax cuts in the right places.
What do you think?
Yeah, you've nailed it.
You you I mean, leaving uh you know as as much of the free economy alone as you can and cutting taxes, which allows people more usage of their money to hire people or engage in commerce or what have you.
It is a there's an old saw here that you can't um you you can't reduce deficits while reducing inflation, and we proved them wrong twice on that.
We did it in the eighties, and we're doing it now.
Well, it's about time a Republican president got the credit and got the benefit of good economic policy, don't you think?
Uh I think a Republican president is in the in the uh minds and hearts of the people.
What what you're again don't get confused by by what you see in the mainstream press.
The mainstream press, they'll report the job figures, but they'll leave it alone after that.
They will not put it in context and they will not talk about the roaring economy, because shortly after the job figures report will be an interview with a Democrat who will talk about all the suffering.
And while the economy may be good for the rich and it may be good for the upper class, there's still a lot of misery out there.
And I and John Edwards is is trying to make a career on the two Americas.
And of course, since the press is allied with the Democratic Party, they're gonna go ahead and portray that vision because no matter what they do, John, they're not gonna credit George W. Bush with anything.
If the economy comes back, they're gonna find some other reason to credit it.
Greenspan or who knows who, but but they're not gonna credit Bush.
But this is where the liberals and the press in the Democratic Party are missing it.
The American people are living it.
They know it.
And they hear all this gunk about the economy being in the tank and it being horrible and no jobs out there, and to the extent that it's believed, it's not a believe, it's not believed by people by themselves.
But the the danger in this is that people say, Well, I'm doing okay, but my neighbor must be in real trouble.
Uh that's that's the one fallacy in in my in my argument.
But the economy is on fire, and by the way, one other statistic to add to this when you talk to your liberals, because this is key, your liberal buddies.
We just found out that one of the primary reasons the deficit is down is that tax revenues are up.
Now you ask your liberal buddies, how in the hell can that be?
When we have cut taxes, when we have cut income tax rates and cut income taxes.
How can tax revenue be up?
You ask them that, and they won't have an answer, and they will tell you that you're lying about the tax rates being a factor in the deficit.
They'll tell you you're lying about tax rates being up, but it's true it was uh it was a treasury department story, IRS numbers back it all up.
And it happens every time it's tried.
When you lower marginal tax rates, you spur economic activity, you which results in more people being hired, which creates more taxpayers.
And so you get more tax revenue because more people are working.
At the same time when you do this, you take people at the at the top of the income scale, the quote-unquote rich, and they become less inclined to shelter income from taxes.
They're more comfortable reporting it.
If they're paying fewer dollars in taxes, I'll report that dollar as income rather than put it in some trust or something that shelters it.
And all results in more revenue to the treasury.
So not only are jobs up, Not only uh uh is the economy roaring along, housing starts, manufacturing, it's all up.
So is tax revenue.
And according to the left, none of this is possible.
None of this is we have to raise taxes on the rich to bring back the economy.
Now you stop and think about that.
We have to raise taxes on the rich if we really want to get the economy going.
Well, maybe we don't even want to get the economy going.
We just want to make it fair.
We want to punish people at the top, whether it helps people down below or not.
We're gonna punish people at the top because we want the people down below to really feel good that other people are suffering, but it doesn't do them one bit of good because the economy doesn't come back under their way.
So you just add to everything you tell them, and those tax cuts caused increased revenue, and that's 60% of the deficit reduction, and you will have them so stymied that they'll walk away in frustration, unable to talk to you, shouting and calling you names all the way.
Looks like a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 has landed at Houston's hobby uh airport.
Uh a passengers said they found a threatening note on board the plane, and uh it's uh they're just now starting to disembark passengers.
They've got an ambulance there.
Uh but that's about all that's known at the moment.
It's a Southwest 737's a new airplane, uh and they're taking passengers off the plane.
Something of a threatening note uh found on board.
Open line Friday rolls on New Albany, Indiana.
This is Rob.
Hello, sir, welcome to the program.
Hi, Ross, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
Uh just wanted I was wondering, you refer to yourself as a highly trained broadcast specialist.
I was wondering what do you do for continuum education in order that you maintain your influence over so many of us.
Well, that's not that those are not broadcast skills.
Uh uh highly team uh broadcast uh specialist simply means that I understand the techniques of broadcast.
There's nothing to do that the things that really have nothing to do with the content of what I say.
I see.
Uh that is another special talent that uh really goes above and beyond uh about broadcasting, and that requires its own day-to-day uh uh work and upkeep.
Now, the the thing about uh uh maintaining broadcast skills, broadcast skills are learned, and I will tell you, folks.
Every individual in this business who tried to personally teach them to me only screwed me up.
I learned broadcast skills from uh listening and observing people who succeeded at it.
Uh and I I but when I was taken aside, there I there were some people that have helped me by getting out of my way and letting me be who I was in terms of uh uh uh host, uh performer, what have you.
But in terms of the broadcast skills, there's nothing like experience to teach them.
Some of them are instinctive with people like timing and and so forth.
But the the people over the course of my career who actually like take me into their office for a coaching session after a program or the tape of the program, say you gotta do this different, you gotta do that differently, and I'd try to listen to them and it it just screwed me up because I I was trying to be what somebody else wanted me to be instead of just being who I was naturally.
And so the the but the broadcast skills, I mean, there are this the there are certain sets of requirements for success in every business.
If you're gonna be a stockbroker, if you're gonna be a doctor, if you are going to be a lawyer, uh if if you're gonna be a judge, if you're gonna be a bridge bridge builder, what have you, there's specific skills that are required for success.
Same thing with broadcasting, which is one of the reasons I have cringed when non-broadcasters are plucked by broadcast experts and put on the air because they sounded good as a caller.
Uh I remember when the rage was to get psychiatrists on the radio.
And uh I had the theory, fine, you go out and get find the best psychiatrist or psychologist you can and put them on the air against a highly trained broadcaster and the psychologist psychiatrist won't stand a prayer.
And it's not things that a listener instinctively picks up on.
I mean, you just know when somebody sounds good and when they don't, but why?
That's you're not supposed to understand those things.
The uh the great make it look easy, which is why so many everybody out there thinks they can do it.
Mr. You have a follow-up question.
Well, what's the follow-up?
Sturdley has a follow-up question.
What's the question?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yes.
Oh, well, no, when I he his question when I was 16 and my first day on the air was I intimidated or was I natural?
I was intimidated, but I spent Three months off the air uh learning how to run the board and all that sort of stuff for the for the for the jock.
So that my first day on the radio, that stuff was automatic.
Uh but the No, I was nervous as I could be.
But I mean, even when you know the right thing to do when you're first starting out, you don't always pull it off.
You talk too long or you miss a break or what have you, but um I I uh Well, it became what what what he next question when did it become effortless?
Um you uh well it's not effortless now.
The execution is effortless.
The preparation's not.
But the execution, I that that probably took um six months or a year, if that, uh, to where I didn't even think about that, except when see you're not executing right.
You need to do this.
And it's okay, they start thinking anytime somebody gets you to start thinking about what you're doing, rather than you just doing it, they're gonna screw you up.
Because then you become self-conscious.
You can't succeed being self-conscious.
You can't a person on television, for example, cannot sit there and always want to watch themselves on the monitor and succeed.
A person on television cannot be obsessed.
How do I look here?
That's for beforehand.
But once you go on, if you're obsessed with how you look, you're not thinking about you know you're you're not being natural.
And and so uh the big the big thing to overcome when I was young was I'd listen to all the greats, and they always sounded great every day.
They sounded up, they sounded whatever.
And I'd always say, How do you get past these bad days?
Because everybody has a bad mood.
Someday you don't want to go to work, but you still have to.
How do you do it?
Uh I don't have that problem now.
It's just accumulation of time, and I I call it the this professionalism and responsibility.
I know what the expectations of the audience are.
Uh, but that took a while, that took four or five years.
Figure that out.
And then, of course, some PD'd come along and screw me up on that.
You're sounding too up to day.
It doesn't sound natural.
You need to dial it back.
Remember now, Rush, music over music.
You can only talk about the song when you're introing the song.
Well didn't take me long to figure out that wasn't going to take me very far.
If I'm playing one bad apple by Donnie Osmond, and all I can talk about's Donnie Osmond, where am I headed?
You know, in my career.
And if that's so, you know, bye-bye music radio and all that.
But what you're talking about, Rob, how am I able to maintain my influence over you?
I don't even look at it as that.
I don't look at it as having influence over anybody.
I'm not cognizant of whatever power others assign to me here.
I just I revel in the opportunity to share my passions with people, and here's what I learned last night, here's what I saw, and this is what I think about it.
And if you if you want to agree with it, that's fine.
If you don't, that's your problem.
But you don't have to.
I mean, I'm not there's no requirement, and it doesn't upset me if people don't agree with me.
Uh because I am confident in and of myself, what I believe.
I don't I don't say, what do you think of this idea?
Yeah, yeah, that's good, and then go with it.
Uh no, whatever I think I say.
And it's remarkable how often I'm right.
Who's next on the uh pro Fundalek uh Wisconsin?
Uh Mark, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you with us.
Hey diddles rush.
I'd like to counteract what one of your earlier callers said he was kind of frustrated with the amount of coverage that the missing girl in Aruba's been getting.
And I'd like to kind of explain to people that this is a story that tugs at your heart with three big fish hooks, and it just can't let go again until we see justice for that family down there, especially after the way they've been treated in this last what, sixty days?
Yep.
And all the false alarms.
Well, not only false alarms, but you know, just right from the beginning with that police chief being the baptismal godfather of the suspect and having worked for the suspect's father, that's a conflict of interest right there.
Right in the beginning of the case, he should have accused himself.
Let me ask you a question, uh, Mark.
Be honest.
You're you're calling, I mean, you're for the most part you're anonymous, so we know your name is Mark, but um, I want you to tell me the truth.
When you when you look at certain characters in this story, and I don't want to mention any names.
Okay, suspects, suspects, family members or what have you.
You just looking at the look at these people think there's something wrong here.
There's something sleazy about this bunch.
Do you do you react to it?
Definitely Rush.
I think if a person lives a sleazy enough life, it ends up going up in his face.
And you can see that in certain characters in here too.
But that's not the only part I'm disappointed with, Rush.
I'm kind of disappointed with our own State Department who's very willing to sell out this girl in her future for the fact that they can have a listening post in Venezuela.
Well, I haven't I haven't explored that angle.
You think the State Department's not pressing Aruba so they can have a listening post on Venezuela?
Definitely, sir, yes, sir, it is.
It's a strategic point and I think that Oduber is holding it against them.
And that's one of the big things.
Way back in the beginning, Oduber said to his people that right away, if anything bad happened to Natalie Holloway, something bad would happen to Aruba, and that was a signal to all his all his citizens to do what they could to cover up this incident.
Aha.
So let me ask you this at what point did you give up hope that she might be alive or have you?
You know Rush, I'm covering both angles.
I think she may be alive and captive somewhere and I also think that maybe your body was buried in that dump.
And I really was wondering why any American company out there like Caterpillar or KSIH or somebody else hasn't stepped up to the bat and sent some men and some equipment down there to help out that father who's pathetically digging through that dump all by himself.
What are they gonna do?
We've got this Texas group that went down there and looked on a beach and now they're in trouble for upsetting supposedly a a nest of sea turtle eggs.
You know, which is cock eyed uh but no I know I wait he's talking a call we had two hours ago from somebody else why are they spending so much time on Natalie Holloway?
Why aren't they covering other important news and I made the point uh when they do Natalie Holloway the numbers go up.
You can look at the ratings they go the sky high on some of these cable networks and that's why and this is Mark trying to explain it.
I gotta go quick time out.
We will be back in mere moments.
Programming note ladies and gentlemen I will not be here on Monday.
I um I agreed about six months ago to a charity golf tournament uh in the New York area on Monday and can't get out of it.
And um so we'll have a guest host here on Monday but I will be back on um on Tuesday.
So just a little FYI.
Here is uh Robert Illooksbury, Pennsylvania Hello sir nice to have you with us.
Oh hi Rush how are you today?
Good good uh you know I don't know if you know it but tomorrow it's the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Yeah that was the subject of today's morning update.
And uh it doesn't seem like we've learned a lot or that you know from that experience uh you know we we've got uh this I don't know if you know it during the year they had a nuclear proliferation treaty review conference which basically was a bust and where the uh uh Robert it uh first place it's a sixty year anniversary I think but but do you really expect treaties on this kind of thing to work when you make treaties with countries like North Korea and Iran and uh and whoever else is out there trying to develop these things.
I think you're right it is the sixty, sorry.
Uh well yeah the the the whole agreement is that the the nuclear states, the ones that already have the weapons will reduce their arsenals.
And and so that those states that don't have nuclear weapons don't have to feel that they have to uh compete or are going to be threatened.
And uh But that's not why they get them that they're not they're not feeling threatened like North Korea wants them not because they feel threatened or because they want to be able to threaten and because they want to be acting and be treated and act like big guys and oh well they I think they they do feel threatened.
But when when we have uh when we're going to develop these new nuclear bunker buster bombs supposedly that that's threatening to open up a new kind of nuclear arms race that eventually terrorists would get these weapons and uh and perhaps use them on us.
So w if other countries start doing the same thing.
So I think we have to look at it like if you had a terrorist in a building with dynamite that threatened to build up blow up the building, right, you would call that guy a terrorist, right?
But if we have enough nuclear weapons I would yes I uh yeah I don't know how many others would if we have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the whole world what does that make us a superpower of the world and people got to listen to us.
Well we're we're you know where they have to be worried that that that we could blow up everything.
Now is that moral is it ethical it's called national it's called national security and and you know we've nuclear weapons have been used twice in the world both times by us.
A war ended American lives were saved and since then no nuclear weapons have been detonated by anybody other than testing and be it's precisely because they were used people saw the horrors.
So it was uh you know this sixth anniversary is actually something to celebrate well no I I I'm concerned we haven't learned and then unfortunately I think the way we're going with the with with the current administration's policies and the Western world in general is we're we're becoming oblivious to the nuclear threat.
But when the when the terrorists get a hold of these weapons and we start using uh nuclear weapons, these bunker buster bombs, then I I think uh we're we're just endangering the world, and I think that's here's here's my problem with this.
Here's my problem with this.
You instinctively want to blame a terrorist getting a nuclear weapon on the United States.
And it sounds like you want to make that case because we haven't gotten rid of enough nukes.
And that the the the the that that thinking doesn't hold.
The terrorists want to get nukes because they're terrorists.
The terrorists want to use nukes against innocent people because they are terrorists.
And they were going to try to get nukes regardless who has them.
They are not concerned about any retaliation that we have.
The old mutual assured destruction destruction rules don't work with them because they don't care about getting blown away.
They'll be willing to blow themselves up in one of these in one of these terrorist blasts if they ever get one.
The problem is the instability of the nations that have these things, such as the the old Soviet Union.
They broke apart.
If terrorists get hold of a nuclear weapon, it's gonna come from some renegade Russian general who's fed up that Putin doesn't want him in power anymore, knows where there's some plutonium and other materials, or somebody like Saddam Hussein who's gonna run around and try to get some just to get it, or we're gonna make a mistake like Bill Clinton did with North Korea and give them the equipment to make a nuclear reactor, and that little pot-bellied thug over there double crosses us and turns the the the things we give him into into weapons.
And interestingly, there's this story in the stack of stuff today that people are urging that we give Iran uh uh nuclear material show to work with them on this.
And I I read this story and says anybody remember North Korea.
Say it's it's you know, i I I you you you continue to make a moral equivalence between the United States and the evil people and nations of the world, and there isn't such a correlation.
You can't why why why must this country always get the blame if some terrorists end up with nuclear weapons?
What why must our policies be blamed for?
If a terrorist happens to get hold of nuclear weapons from some renegade nation like China, who is willing to sell them to a renegade nation like Iran or whatever, because they want to be able to dominate us.
You know, and so we can't lower our stockpiles too much because we have to maintain it's called a deterrent.
It's like when we built the B-2 stealth bomber.
The idea was we hope we never have to use it.
But Rush, but Rush, why build it if you never have to use it?
Because knowing that it's there will deter others from attacking us.
Same thing with the nuclear arsenal.
The idea that that what we're responsible for this is silly.
Every year we get people that go over to Nagasaki and Hiroshima and we're sorry.
We didn't mean to do it.
Yes, we did mean to do it.
We did it on purpose.
We're happy we did it.
It ended a war.
It turned Japan into a democracy.
It showed the rest of the world the horrors of these weapons and they haven't been used since.
It's a win-win all the way around back after this.
Uh Tinley Park, Illinois, as we uh wrap it up today at Open Line Friday.
Hi, Margaret, nice to have you with us.
Oh, thank you for taking my call.
How are you doing?
Just fine, thank you.
Okay.
I was listening to that guy that just uh was on before me, and it occurred to me he uses the same argument for not building these other weapons that could actually help us as the gun control people use.
We can't have guns because someone will take them away and use them against us.
Yes.
It's crazy.
Uh well, it is, but there's it the there's there's the the continuing uh assumption by these people there's no that that there's a moral equivalence uh that our having nuclear weapons is just as bad as say a uh Osama bin Laden having them.
Uh no.
And then there is the further that if we get rid of them that Saddam won't need them and he'll it's just it's it's convoluted.
If we were to ever get rid of nuclear weapons, the rest of the world would ramp up so fast and we'd be history faster than you could snap your fingers.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay, well thank you.
Okay, Margaret, appreciate that.
Um ladies and gentlemen, not not not enough time to be fair with uh with another callers.
We're coming to the sad and unfortunate disappointing end of another busy broadcast week.
Well, it is a sad thing when the show ends.
Uh people wish it could go longer.
But our creed here is always leave you wanting more.
Uh that's highly specialized and trained broadcast skill talk there, folks.
And a reminder we'll be gone on Monday.
Uh Mark Belling is going to be here.
I have uh I have a charity event that I committed to uh a long time ago because I'm a person of honor.
Uh I didn't even try to get out of it.
Uh I'm gonna go ahead and go, but I'll be back on Tuesday, and I will look forward to it.
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