Ditto can be up for the remaining two hours of the program.
Great to be with you.
We always have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I, America's anchorman, doing what I was born to do.
The telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address rush at eibnet.com.
I went to the websites of Newsweek and Time today.
I thought, sure, I'd see Louis Free on the cover.
And I didn't.
What is it?
Newsweek has got the Mormon church on the cover.
So I figured Louis Free must be a Mormon.
And then I saw that I looked at Time, and Louis Free is not on the cover there.
And neither Time nor Newsweek are running excerpts from Louis Free's book.
Time magazine's cover is health and aging.
So I figure Louis Free must be getting old out there.
Bill Clinton sings in the voice of Paul Shanklin.
And that is Paul Shanklin.
And you can visit all of Paul Shanklin's parodies at PaulShanklin.com.
That's Louis Louis.
And for me, it's sort of like the original Louis Louie.
Didn't understand all the lyrics, but that's part of the charm.
The New York Times has a report today on the book by Louis B. Free.
In new book, ex-director of the FBI fights back, settling a score, they say.
I told you, I told you that the mainstream press is going to circle the wagons around Free.
No cover story on Free on Timer Newsweek.
No book excerpts in Timer Newsweek.
The Washington Post is not serializing the book like they sometimes do.
Louis Free, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, former director under President Clinton, and the first six months of the Bush presidency, asserts in a new book that Richard Clark, the former White House counterterrorism chief, was basically a second-tier player who had little access to power and was in no position to issue credible warnings in advance of the attacks in the World Trade Center in the Pentagon.
If he was rushing around the executive branch trying to make a case that we were in imminent danger of a terrorist attack on our shores, he wasn't trying to make that case with me, Free writes of Mr. Clark in his memoir to be published this week called My FBI, Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton and Fighting the War on Terror, the publisher, St. Martin's Press.
In his own book, by the way, Against All Enemies, Inside America's War on Terror, Mr. Clark describes himself as a herald of the dangers of terrorism, paints a scathing picture of Mr. Free and the FBI, criticizing the former director and his agency as ignoring the possibility of terrorism in this country.
Free says that incidents involving two of them that Mr. Clark describes in his book never happened, and the Clark book can be fairly described as bad facts and no access.
Mr. Clark was traveling over the weekend and didn't respond to messages left on his office phone or his cell phone.
Meanwhile, 60 Minutes did the obligatory interview with Louis Free last night.
Mike Wallace did it.
And Wallace said, Mr. Free, I'm told that relations got so bad between you and Bill Clinton that his former chief of staff, John Podesta, says that Mr. Clinton always referred to you as that effing free, as though your first name was effing.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I don't know how they refer it to me, and I really didn't care.
My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations.
He, unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation.
You know, I investigated and arrested and prosecuted some of the biggest mobsters in New York City for many, many years.
Interestingly, they were always very respectful to me.
When I was chosen as FBI director, one of the subjects I convicted wrote me a letter from prison, and he said, Mr. Free, I want to say that you always treated me fairly.
Good luck as FBI director.
And then he had P.S.
I stole the stamp for this letter.
Now, what does that mean, though?
I mean, Louis Free is saying he was treated with more respect by mobsters that he put in jail than he was by Bill Clinton.
Well, that's a mobster he didn't put in jail.
I guess the mobsters that you nail, the mobsters that you nail respect you for doing your job well.
So they steal stamps to write you congratulatory letters.
The next question, Wallace says, is it true that you stayed on longer as FBI director because you didn't want Bill Clinton to get a chance to name the new guy?
That's correct.
I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director, and was going to stay there and make sure that he couldn't replace me.
Wallace says, well, with the new president's approval, on Free's last day as FBI director, he announced indictments of those responsible for the Cobar attack, but they're still overseas, out of America's reach.
Free told us that way back in 1993, after the World Trade Center, the first one, bombing, he realized the U.S. was in a global war with terrorists.
But then, after al-Qaeda terrorists blew a hole in the USS Cole and demolished two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and America did a little to retaliate, Free writes how frustrated that made him because he believes that not retaliating only encouraged more attacks.
You write, America seemed like a lumbering giant.
Those are your words, stumbling around with a sign on its back reading, kick me.
USS Cole, the East African bombings, the attempted assassination of President Bush, former President Bush, by the Iraqi intelligence service.
What was our response to that?
We sent a missile into Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad after working hours.
So we were targeting the custodial staff and not the agents who had tried to kill the president, former president of the United States.
We lacked the political will, the spine, to take military action against our enemies.
It was obvious for years that that's what our position had been.
So today on the Today Show, they circled the wagons and they went and got Joe Lockhart, who used to run the Kerry campaign.
And this is one of his reactions to the charges Louis Free makes.
He spent a lot of his time chasing political rumors and political scandals when there were real issues like the FBI computer system, the crime wag, and the real terrorist threat.
Hey, Joe, the real terrorist?
That's what he's talking about.
What do you mean, the real terrorist threat?
We all know what the real terrorist threat was.
Dick Morris from that administration has made it clear the Clinton administration didn't tackle, didn't really care much about terrorism because your numbers could go down if you didn't do it right.
They didn't tackle big issues in that White House for that very reason.
So Louis Free, I'm going to comment on one other thing, too.
Louis Free, we mentioned this last week, said that Clinton actually did not push the Saudis to release the subjects of the bomber, the suspects of the bombing of the Cobar Towers.
He said to the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, yeah, I know the problem you got with that.
And then Free says that Abdullah was hit up by Clinton for a big donation to the Clinton Library and massage parlor.
Now, the Clinton spinners on this are arguing that Crown Prince Abdullah donated to the library after Clinton left office.
Okay, but was that the first donation or was it the last?
Do you know how much Clinton raised for this library, folks?
$200 million.
Now, can I put this in perspective for you?
He raised $200 million for this library, but do you ever remember national televised public appeals for it?
No.
Bill Clinton and President Bush 41 raised $100 million for the tsunami relief fund.
That was a genuine worldwide tragedy.
And there were PSAs, and they were on Larry King, and they were on all these TV shows, and they were out there doing golf tournaments where you could play one hole out of an 18-hole round with these two presidents for $30,000 or $35,000.
They were doing all this stuff to raise all of this money.
And all those efforts led to $100 million.
And everybody in the world knew.
They were traveling around the world raising money, got $100 million.
Bill Clinton get $200 million for his library and massage parlor.
And nobody to this day knows who the donors are other than now Crown Prince of Dullah.
How did Clinton raise twice as much for his library and massage parlor as the tsunami effort got?
Was it 200 people donating $1 each?
Or did 10 donors donate 20 million each?
We have no clue.
If we could get the donor list and the amounts, I'll tell you what.
I actually think this.
If we could get the donor lists and the amounts the donors donated to the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor, we would probably know more about that presidency than we do all the nukes in China.
I am not kidding.
This is one of the biggest stealth operations that I have run into.
And then the funny thing here is that Bill Clinton's reputation last night being defended by Sandy Burgler.
I can just see this.
Sandy Burglar going on television and producing the statement defending Clinton from his socks.
He grabs down his socks or inside his pants.
Yeah, I brought the statement here defending Bill Clinton.
I have a hiding place for these things in case I'm held up in the way that he grips through his socks and reads the statement here and maybe pulls out a couple of pencils from his ear canals to do the editing and so forth.
I mean, what?
They couldn't get Webb Hubble.
They couldn't get Hillary to defend him.
Sandy Burglar?
Quick time out.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Okay, yes, I'm here.
We're back, folks.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Let's go to New York City and grab a quick phone call.
Michael, hi, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Nice to have you with us.
How are you, Rush?
Good.
I guess another caller spoke my thunder about the oil thing.
So I'll just go to my.
No, he didn't steal your thunder because he wasn't right.
If that's what you were going to say, he didn't steal your thunder.
About the futures market?
Yeah.
And it being, well, I've been in that business.
I mean, it's either got to be that or just, you know, it's the individuals trading and they set the prices.
I mean, I'm not sure how much more complicated it gets.
I don't think there's like one central guy out there that's like the oil czar.
Well, I know.
You and I know this, but I'm told that a powerful media personality believes there is one guy and the investigation is ongoing to try to get it.
Do you know who that was?
No, nobody's told me who it is.
I got a couple of emails.
Do you want to know or should I just not say?
No, no, I don't care who it is.
Powerful media personalities looking into it.
Yeah, I think so.
Some people think that there's one guy, like you call the oil czar, the gas czar, sitting out there determining the prices.
Okay, so we got a hurricane, so the gas guy, he calls the gas station, okay, raise the price 50 cents.
They can't say that it's not the market.
Everybody knows there's a shortage.
Raise it.
And that's, I guess, what people think happened.
It's someone that's respectable.
I was shocked that it came out of his mouth, but we'll move on.
The other question I guess I had is I'm going to see you in a week or so.
I guess you're going to be in New York on Tuesday, right?
It's a week from tomorrow at the Lion King Theater.
Rush on Broadway.
All right.
I fortunately wasn't able to buy tickets in the first 15 minutes because they went so fast.
Are you encouraging people to wear like a shirt or a hat, a Club Gitmo hat, or is that going to be just too much?
I'm not really.
I'm just encouraging that people come dressed.
Okay.
As opposed to naked.
Yeah.
But if you want to wear your Club Gitmo hat, by all means.
I was just, my friend and I are going.
We both have Club Gitmo stuff.
And he asked me about it, and I said, I don't know.
You know, maybe I'll try and get through and see what Rush does.
Oh, come on.
By all means, you can wear that stuff.
I'm honored to see a sea of orange out there.
I think it would be funny.
All right.
Well, I'll look forward to seeing you, Michael.
It'll be good.
I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Let me answer this question on the oil business.
Economics 101.
You and I set the price, folks.
I hate to tell you this.
When we line up 40 cars long at a gas station in Atlanta and the news media comes around and reports a panic, that causes panic buyers all over an affected area.
And it's going to cause in Atlanta, there's no question there was some gouging going on, which it happens.
I mean, it happens throughout the retail market.
It happens in whatever product or commodity that we're talking about.
But the natural ebb and flow of things, it's the consumer that sets the price.
The consumer has the power.
You buy it or you don't buy it at the price.
If you buy it at the price and you don't change your buying habit at that price, the price is going to stay there.
If you buy less and everybody else buys less, price is going to come down.
You buy more because you're in a panic, price is going to go up.
Supply is going to go down, particularly after a disaster that interrupts distribution or supply.
And we still, how many refineries are still offline?
Last I heard last week, 109, 109 refineries, not refineries, but rigs, oil rigs, something like 700,000 gallons of gas or barrels or whatever a day off the market.
What do you think is going to happen?
It doesn't take somebody, oh, look at that.
We got a shortage.
Okay, raise the price.
It's going to happen anyway.
Simply is going to happen.
You buy less of it, you use less of it.
A lot of people do that.
Bamo, price is going to come down.
But that's not going to happen.
You know, we have an economy and a lifestyle based on the consumption of oil and fuel.
And you watch, $3 is going to be supported.
$4 would be, so it'd be a lot of complaining and moaning.
But they are starting to use less, 3%.
But when they get used to the price, when they get used to the prices, like, look, I remember when it went from 25, I remember gas wars at 25 cents a gallon.
You know, when I was 16, I got my first car.
And then I remember the first contrived oil shortage, and the price went to 75 cents.
That was a huge percentage jump.
Of course, people hadn't budgeted 75 cents for gas, drove less.
But after a while, you get used to it.
You get used to what it costs.
And then you watch.
The driving patterns are going to get back to normal after people.
And I'll bet you we go through this cycle.
I'll bet you we go through a cycle of people dumping their SUVs.
And you're going to really disappoint me.
Let me down if you do that, folks.
But people are going to do it.
And they're going to go out and buy these little lawnmowers with a couple seats on them and a bubble and be puttering around there at 35 or 40 miles an hour, saving all this money and so forth.
And after a while, those people are going to see that there's still a bunch of SUV drivers out there, still a bunch of big cars.
Well, I didn't have to do this.
Next time they buy a car, they'll go back and get a big one.
These things run in cycles, but the consumer sets the price.
Consumer sets the price.
Supply and demand.
That's the market.
Well, you could say too much consuming going on out there, too little consuming going on, depending on what your perspective is.
John in Carlsbad, California.
Hi, nice to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Nice to be here, Rush.
This whole thing with the anti-gouging and criminalizing gouging.
Hey, what is really wrong with what is called gouging?
If somebody has enough foresight to stockpile something that they know will be in great demand at one time, they should be able to charge whatever the market will bear for their product and be considered intelligent for doing so.
And if it's too expensive, then hey, maybe we should all be doing the same thing or we should find some alternative.
Well, I think what you're describing is not gouging.
When you say you're all for gouging, you don't really mean that.
This is not because you're not describing gouging.
The thing that you have to know about this is that these people that have come up with the federal gouging law have only one regret, and that is that it's the oil companies and the gas stations getting the money.
If the federal government could gouge you, and it is my submission that they do each and every day with the ridiculous taxes, New Jersey, New Jersey is in such debt, they're going to sell a toll road.
They can't make money with a toll road.
Did you see this?
They're going to sell the turnpike.
New Jersey is going to sell the turnpike.
Gouging?
Let's talk about gouging.
The government's one of the greatest gougers in the world.
When they tell you you owe more, that's it.
You're stuck and you do.
But if they were getting the money from this, you wouldn't hear one complaint from any of these governors.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Excellence in Podcasting Network.
That's what we do here, folks.
Have a great time here.
More fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
And we go back to the phones.
Who's next?
Tim in Tom's River, New Jersey.
I'm glad you waited.
You're next.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
It's an honor.
Yes, sir.
My point is this.
I think that Democrats could take a lesson from Republicans on how to debate an issue.
Because a lot of conservatives are split over Harriet Myers, but all the arguments are intelligent.
None of the arguments are based out of we hate George Bush.
And you can read, you know, whether it's listen to you or Mark Levin or Newt or George Will, they're all varied opinions, but they're all intelligent opinions based on fact.
And you can go through each one of them and try to decide which ones you agree with or believe.
But it's not just all BS and hatred.
It's an honest debate on an honest issue.
And then when another issue comes along, these guys can all get along and agree again.
It's not just strictly, we have to be against it.
And they really need to learn how to debate this way.
They can't.
You're right.
And let me give you a plaudit there because you have provided me an excellent transition into the latest George Lakoff Rhines With piece, which I think is on the American prospect.
His point, folks, is that even when conservatives disagree, it's always about ideas.
When the libs disagree, Bush sucks, or Kerry sucks, or Kennedy sucks, or somebody's screwing up.
But there's a reason for this.
Here is some excerpts from Lakoff's piece.
Hurricane Katrina exposed far more than rank incompetence and negligence by the Bush administration officials.
It showed Americans in full force the intellectual bankruptcy of modern conservatism.
Well, it's just the opposite, but that's what's funny about this.
Whoever succeeds in framing Katrina will have enormous power to shape America's future.
Progressives, no, George, it's liberals.
You're the communications guru.
Be honest.
Liberals started out with the framing advantage because empathy, responsibility, and fairness are what liberals are about.
Conservatives started out with a big disadvantage because they promised to protect us and they failed.
But the conservatives filled the framing gap so quickly and effectively that if progressives, liberals don't respond immediately, conservatives may be able to parley this disaster into an even greater power grab than they made out of September 11th.
Here's where the Katrina framing war stands.
Now, remember, I've got to go back to the opening paragraph where Mr. Lakoff says that the aftermath in Katrina showed Americans in full force the intellectual bankruptcy of modern conservatism.
So, intellectual bankruptcy.
And he cites examples.
He says, conservatives understand full well the importance of framing.
They are busily framing Katrina to advance their right-wing agenda and expand their power.
Their message is simple.
The hurricane proves that conservatives are right all along.
Katrina showed what happens when state and local officials become dependent on the federal government and fail to take responsibility for making security their top priority.
Conservative commentators have additionally used Katrina as demonstrating the inadequacy of government in general and as providing a rationale for shrinking it further.
All true.
And by the way, that's not intellectual bankruptcy.
It's all true.
Wait, there's more.
Katrina reveals the dangers of environmental organizations that sue to stop levy-raising projects in order to save an obscure species.
Katrina proves that we must expand our domestic oil and gas production by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and eliminating environmental protections.
Nobody's talking about eliminating environmental protections.
Other than that, everything he said is true.
This hurricane did reveal the dangers of environmental organizations that sue to stop levy-raising projects in order to save an obscure species.
But that's not all that happened, George.
The money was appropriated for these levies and it was not spent properly.
And the construction firm working on the 17th Street Canal said, if you build it here without reinforcing this soil that the foundation is going to go in, it's not going to withstand.
It's not going to withstand what's coming.
And they said, well, we're going to stick with it as it is.
We're not going to spend the additional $900,000, even though they had the money.
His next attack on conservatives is this.
Katrina showed that the nation needs capable corporations like Walmart and Halliburton to take responsibility for delivering services, massive cleanups, and large-scale rebuilding.
Prevailing wage laws and environmental regulations must be suspended so private companies can do their work.
Katrina showed the importance of individual responsibility.
Those who failed to take individual responsibility to get out suffered greatly or even died.
Those who stayed behind to loot or act in otherwise unlawful ways revealed the underbelly of urban liberalism and government welfare.
Well, George, you need to read the media.
They've now admitted that all of the looting and the unlawful acts were not really all that great.
Whenever conservatives have their back to the wall, they redouble their efforts and turn disaster into ideological and political gain.
Right-wing leaders are using this moment as another chance to solidify power by appealing to the general conservative principles that have been developed and disseminated for decades.
By contrast, the liberals, for the most part, don't understand deep framing, framing at the level of values and principles.
Oh, yes, they do, George.
They just don't dare go there.
Progressives are trying to win, but they are fighting on the wrong battlefield altogether.
They are telling truths, lots of them of all kinds, a buckshot load of truths, mostly aimed at Bush.
Here's the liberal answer.
Bush lacked leadership.
Bush was told in advance it didn't respond in time.
Bush had sent the National Guard to Iraq when it was needed at home.
Bush loaded FEMA with incompetent political hacks.
Bush took money from levee reconstruction and used it for the war.
That's not true.
But the point is, how do you sell this?
What is missing in all of these things?
What is missing in Bush-lack leadership?
What's missing is the kind of leadership we would give you as liberals.
That's where they can't frame themselves, George.
They don't dare.
They don't dare go back to their principles and their core beliefs and their roots.
If they do that, they're guaranteeing their defeat.
All they can do is attack Bush and attack Bush and attack Bush and attack Bush and attack FEMA and attack Bush.
Bush failed to preserve the wetlands.
Bush has refused to address global warming.
It goes on and on and on.
And Lakoff says, while these are all true, it doesn't frame any core values, deep-rooted values that voters can get to know the liberals because they just don't have the ability to do that.
George, they most certainly do have the, if you go to Massachusetts, you go to certain parts of California, liberals have no trouble telling you who they are.
They have no trouble being who they are.
They have no trouble acting as they are.
But when it comes to national things, they can't afford it, George.
Have you looked at the map of the red and blue counties, the red and blue states?
Have you looked at that, George?
They can't do it.
That blue would shrink even further.
So here's their guru telling them where they're going wrong, and in the process of citing what he thinks are Republican lies, he gets it.
He gets it right.
He is detained.
About 90% of it's right.
Here's Harmon in Washington, D.C. Harmon, glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, how are you doing, Rush Mega Delaware from the nation's capital, long-time listener, first-time caller?
The topic you were talking about a little while ago, I seem to remember on the last 12 days of Bubba's administration, Denise Rich lit in $450,000 right before he pardoned her husband, Mark.
I believe he pardoned a bunch of other people in those last 12 days.
Love to go look at that list and see how many of them made donations to his library.
You owe the library and massage parlor donations.
That's what you're calling it.
Well, actually, what happened was Denise Rich, the former wife of the fugitive financier, Mark Rich, who was controversially pardoned by President Clinton on his last day in office, had donated $450,000 to the Presidential Library Fund, according to reports in Washington.
I'm reading now from a BBC story.
Her lawyer had told a House committee probing the pardon that Denise Rich donated an enormous sum to the fund.
Reports of the donations have ranged from $400,000 to $1 million.
This story, by the way, dated February 10th of 2001, just less than a month after Slick Willie left office.
So, okay, there's one.
Denise Rich, $450,000 to pardon her husband, Mark Rich.
Well, I mean, that's what the BBC says.
We trust the BBC in matters about Clinton.
So, but still, they got 200 million, folks.
I'm telling you, Clinton and Bush 41, in a worldwide televised effort, raised $100 million for the tsunami relief fund.
Clinton alone, surreptitiously and under the cover of darkness and maybe under cover of the sheets, raised $200 million for his library and massage parlor.
And this is all going back to Louis Free with his story in his book that Clinton held up the Saudis or hit up the Saudis for a donation to his library after telling them he understood that it would be not in their best interest to let the FBI in the country to investigate and interview the suspects who'd blown up the Cobar Towers project.
So Like I say, if we could get the full donor list, who contributed what to the Clinton Library and Massage Pro, we would know more about that administration than all eight years of the New York Times, The Washington Post, Chinese nukes, John Wong, Johnny Chung put together.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Hi, welcome back.
When you hear this, got two little stories here.
First one's from the Boston Herald.
The Department of Correction has found a new way to entertain the most dangerous cons, convicts in the state.
They've sent in a circus.
Last week, murderers, rapists, purse-snatchers, and other violent prisoners at the MCI Walpole, Sousa Baranowski Correctional Center, and the Boston Pre-Release Center were being treated to entertainment in the form of strong men, singers, and comedians who are part of a touring evangelistic Christian outreach group that uses laughs to urge convicts into Bible study.
Correction officers say that clowns even joined the act.
The Christian group is called Operation Starting Line, a program aimed at helping violent convicts on their marathon run through life with all its loops and bends, its smooth pavements and potholes.
The traveling circus has infuriated correction officers who complain that in addition to the violent maniacs they are dealing with every day, they now have to trip over bozo in the prison yard.
Here's Ken Feruglio, a vice president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.
He said, picture a big clown car pulling up to MCI Wallpole with strong men, clowns getting out, and entertaining the murderers and rapists out in the yard.
Morale here is at an all-time low.
We have to watch inmates who are throwing feces and urine at us be entertained by a circus, having a great time.
I've been in this department for 13 years.
I've never seen anything like this.
It's shocking.
The columnist here is named Michelle McPhee.
And she says, it strikes me that there are probably enough strong men already in the prison system.
How many more men need to flex their muscles in a prison yard?
And the issues of clowns has become a touchy one with the Department of Corrections.
Last week, Nantell, the DOC spokeswoman, insisted there were no clowns on prison property.
Yes, there was a strong man, she said, but some singers, but no clowns.
There were never clowns.
I know that there was a strong man who's a former drug addict, but there weren't any clowns here.
I beg to differ.
Maybe Ted Kennedy showed up, and maybe that was the clown.
And if Ted Kennedy wasn't there, they don't like this group entertaining the thugs.
I mean, there are plenty of people in Massachusetts that can go and put on a good show.
And then, you people remember the Smurfs?
I don't know this.
Are the Smurfs still a TV show?
Are they still out there?
They're not.
All right.
Well, UNICEF, the UN, is bringing them back.
UNICEF, their first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon character's village is annihilated by warplanes, has terrified young children.
The short but chilling film is to be broadcast on national TV this week as a campaign advertisement for a fundraising drive by UNICEF.
The animation was approved by the family of the Smurf's late creator.
Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film last week when it was shown on the evening news.
The reactions ranged from approval to shock, and in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.
UNICEF and the family company, IMPS, which controls all rights to the Smurfs, have stimulated that it is not to be broadcast before 9 p.m. when it's hoped that children will be in bed.
The film pulls no punches.
It opens with the Smurfs dancing hand in hand around a campfire and singing the Smurf song.
Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gamble around their familiar village of mushroom-shaped houses until without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.
The Smurfs scatter.
They run in vain from the whistling bombs before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions.
The final scene shows a scorched and tattered baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone smurfs.
The final frame bears the message: don't let war affect the lives of children.
This is intended as part of a fundraising drive by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise more than $100,000 for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi.
Philippe Hennen, a spokesman for UNICEF in Belgium, said that his agency had set out to shock after concluding that traditional images of suffering in Third World War zones had lost their power to movie television viewers.
Well, why is that?
He's probably right about that.
Why is it?
Because everybody reads.
You know, you keep pushing the envelope and shocking people, and pretty soon you've got to the line that you have to cross because you can no longer shock them.
Besides that, the little secret here, dirty little secret, is that after years and decades of showing these pictures of the starving, depleted, poverty-stricken third world, and after being told we must do something about it, after sending the U.S. military in, after sending how much aid, how much money, how much food, we still see the situation existing.
We don't see any reduction.
In fact, we see an expansion of the circumstance.
So the money's drying up.
This is all about the money.
Follow the money.
The money is drying up.
So now they blow up the Smurfs.
UNICEF blows up the Smurfs, leaving the Smurf baby as the lone survivor of the Smurf family, watching the destruction of his family or her family or whatever.
We've never done something like this before, but we've learned over the years that the reaction to the more normal type of campaign is very limited.
I don't know who's dropping the bombs.
It's not stipulated in this commercial who it is that's bombing the Smurfs village.
But how about an idea?
How about they redo?
How about UNICEF redoing this little 25-second Smurf deal and have Al-Qaeda behead Papa Smurf?
We want to really convey a message of what's going on in the world.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
Yeah, broadcast engineers, a great idea, Mr. Mamon.
Halloween's coming up.
Go out and dress up as a bloodied Smurf for Halloween and go knock on doors raising money for UNICEF.