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Jan. 18, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
January 18, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, it's as if I never went anywhere, apparently.
Did you guys do an hour without me before I got here?
You know, I was almost late because it's miserable in Manhattan.
I'd forgotten, and I lived here for five years, but I'd forgotten just how tough it is to get a cab when it's raining in New York City.
Forget about it.
I don't know where they go.
Somebody has them.
They must reserve them the night before.
Well, I flew in the night before.
I didn't know it was going to be such bad weather.
You guys have had a mess here.
Trees down, power lines down, power outages, delays at the airport, all of that.
And Mamon was late, but I shouldn't say that on the air should I.
No.
Well, since it's already our second hour, apparently, you know, I can tell the truth.
Because the first hour went by without any of us even knowing it.
Mamone, that's unlike you.
Back to our days at ABC to play the, that was the rejoiner as if I'd been here already.
Well, you know, the funny thing is, it's like we never left.
In fact, I haven't stopped talking since I did this a while ago, filling in, and it was great fun.
My name is Paul W. Smith from WJR in Detroit, the great voice of the Great Lakes from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building.
It's nice to be back with the guys here.
And this time at the East Coast office of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where, as I always say, there's never a final exam, but we are tested daily.
And I truly am behind the golden EIB microphone in soggy, windswept Manhattan.
If you'd like to see where Rush is, and we all hate it when he's not here, but he is out having some fun.
He happens to be in the sunshine, one would presume, at the Bob Hope Desert Classic, which he hadn't been to in a couple of years, and he's there now.
And if you go to his website, I think they have a camera following him around, showing, of course, only the good shots that he has.
So here we are with the Rush Limbaugh Program, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network right here on your favorite radio station.
My pleasure, my privilege to be with you.
The most important thing I can do is listen to you as you listen to me, one of the students here.
You can always call us with whatever we're doing, whatever we're talking about.
We like to hear from you at 800-282-2882.
That's 800-282-2882.
And give us a call right now with whatever's on your mind.
Certainly there's lots in the news.
Remember, the last time I filled in here, I read to you the piece making the rounds on the internet on how immigrants, not Americans, must adapt.
And I got hundreds of requests for this thing.
And I cannot put it on the I can't put it on my WJR website.
I can't put it on Russia's website.
This is something you're just going to have to find.
I got to believe if you Google it, it'll come up.
It's got to, because it went around the world before it got to me, probably.
It's immigrants, not Americans, must adapt.
I read that to you on the air, and I'm not kidding, hundreds of emails, people asking for it.
I'm not ignoring your email.
I just can't do it.
It's not mine to send, apparently.
You know, I have to talk to the webmasters and all the guys that know all this stuff.
The guys that come in, they work.
You don't exactly know what they're doing.
You're afraid to ask them a question about the computer because they look at you like you're really stupid.
NSA activity.
Yeah, a little NSA activity.
It might be, in fact.
Could very well be.
They could be working for the government, for all we know.
But most of them, you know, the job must be tension-filled because they disappear with regularity.
And then there's an email saying we got a new IT guy.
Does this happen everywhere?
It seems to happen everywhere.
Our old IT guy, he would say, please don't contact me.
Contact, you know, some 800 number or someplace in Duluth that we were supposed to ask our questions.
And the last place we were supposed to go, worst case scenario, was to our IT guy.
So when our IT guy would put an email out saying he was going to be out of the building, we all looked at each other and said, so what?
We're not supposed to go to him anyway.
Well, anyway, we talked about, I think Tukey Williams had just been given justice.
He had just been put to death last time we talked.
Remember that?
Yeah.
And then I said at the time, there's another guy in death roll, 76-year-old, about a 76-year-old guy, I think, who was put to death this last week in the last several days, unfortunately, without a Hollywood fan club.
Pity the current death row inmates without PR group or Hollywood fan club because nobody cared.
Poor guy was blind, nearly deaf, in a wheelchair, white.
There was no reason to care about him, apparently.
He was too sick to be put to death.
Some people did argue he was too sick to be put to death.
Now, you have to understand, you make a good point, Kit, which is what you usually do.
You make a good point here.
Some people said he was too sick to be put to death.
It is when they have to revive somebody to put them to death.
That's when you, you know, if they, just minutes before did CPR bring him back to life so they can bring him in the room and then kill him, that's when you start to say.
The only thing I don't like about the death penalty is it does seem wrong that we wait so long.
This guy was there 23 years.
That's ridiculous, 23 years of paying for him and going through all of this.
I don't understand why it takes so long.
Remember, we welcomed Rick Wagner, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation, talked about the rest of the country and why the rest of the country should care about the fate of the American auto manufacturers.
And there's still lots of trouble ahead, but interestingly enough, there's been a bit of a surge in sales of American-made cars.
And the North American International Auto Show underway there in Detroit.
Since our visit, lots has happened, much of it very important.
We met Judge Samuel Alito, finding him, I think, to be an excellent choice for the highest court of the land.
And White House point man Steve Schmidt will join us this hour on the Russia Limbaugh Show to talk a bit about him and what's going on and what's being done to try to derail his nomination, which doesn't seem possible, but I guess things are being done.
They're delaying it so they can run more bad commercials about him, things like that.
I have to say, you may or may not like Senator Lindsey Graham, but I have to tell you, I thought that he at least cut through the circus-like hearings and brought some sanity and civility with his apology to the judge and his family for everything they had been going through, because it was ridiculous, let's face it.
And if we keep doing things like that, who in the world is ever going to want to run for anything?
Why would you, if you're a bright, successful man or woman, why would you want to run for something anymore and go through this meat grinder that politics have become?
Where there's no more discussion, it's all debate, which means you have to have a winner or a loser.
There's no meeting of the minds.
It's just, well, we'll get into that a little bit.
But, of course, they were finding the EFPs, the explosively formed penetrators, those deadly EF projectiles piercing the armor of our soldiers on the patrol, protecting Iraqi citizens in their vehicles, no matter how well armored they've been, finding those EFPs with Iran's and serious fingerprints all over them as if we needed any more proof that they're very much involved and very much our enemy.
And now Iran thumbing their nose at the world, playing a deadly nuclear game of chicken with us, Russia, China, others.
We'll talk today with an expert on all things Iran and has been for a long time.
Kenneth Timmerman was sounding the alarm on Osama bin Laden a long while ago.
And we want to find out why we weren't listening or why we didn't do anything if we were listening.
A lot of questions there about that, and we'll ask Kenneth Timmerman about that.
And we're going to take a look at Iraq through Paul Bramer's Rear View Mirror, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
He's out and about talking about his new book, My Year in Iraq, and you've probably seen and heard him making the rounds.
We'll talk with him too, and maybe you'll have a chance to talk with him as well, because you may have some questions that none of us have thought of.
Some other curious things have happened since we last visited Mayor Ray Nagan.
Didn't you just love this guy?
I mean, somebody's got to chart how the donations fall off for New Orleans every time this guy talks.
You know, don't take it out on the good people of New Orleans when this guy speaks and puts his foot in his mouth.
But here you got Mayor Ray Nagan promising New Orleans will be a chocolate city again and that God is mad at America, you know, with all of the troubles that we've had and the hurricanes and such.
Well, Mayor Nagan, to follow your line of thinking, let me get this right.
If God is mad at America, we can only imagine how he feels about New Orleans.
That's using the mayor's logic.
We've learned, too, that two groups are suing the Bush administration over the so-called domestic spying program, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, what a surprise, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, mounting what is being called the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.
I think you will find that most Americans side if we were to choose, we side with the folks fighting aggressively against terrorism.
It's as simple as saying in your hometown, there's a group of people who side with the cops, for example, not the criminals.
And there's a group of people who side with the criminals, not the cops.
It's almost as simple as that.
And sadly, it's almost as simple as saying, it seems that the liberals are worried about the people who are fighting the bad guys, and the conservatives are more concerned about the bad guys and supporting the people who are fighting them, trying to make this as simple as possible.
Well, anyway, anyway, with all of this going on, it's given former Vice President Al Gore a chance to get back in the limelight that he so craves.
Apparently, conveniently forgetting his own administration's participation in the echelon spying program when he rants and raves about the Bush administration's participation.
And by the way, you know, you've got to be careful with the internet.
There's, as far as I know, no truth to the rumors that Mr. Gore considered suing God for not giving him a personality or for suing that hospital where he underwent an obviously failed charisma transplant.
No truth to any of those rumors as far as I know.
You know our number.
It's 800-282-2882.
800-282-2882.
I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh, and I hope your day is going well, and I'm glad you're tuned in.
I miss Rush, too, when he's off out and about playing golf like this.
You know that he is at the Bob Hope Desert Classic, but he'll be back next week.
And it's up to all of us to hold it together here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
And that's what I'm doing with you at 800-282-28882.
And thanks to my bosses at WJR and Detroit for giving me a couple of days.
I've had a couple of days off anyway.
Why not use him working here in New York with this fine team on the EIB, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network?
All right, right to you on the telephone.
Terry is on a cell phone in Prescott, Arizona.
Hello, Terry.
Hey, Paul, how are you?
I'm great.
Hope you're well.
I'm doing real well.
I just wanted to make a couple of comments on the Alito confirmation hearings.
Yes.
About 20 years ago, my father was appointed to the federal court by President Reagan.
Well, congratulations to you.
Oh, it was a wonderful day for my dad.
It was a wonderful day for my family.
What an honor.
Absolutely.
And the only downside to the whole situation was the grossly unfair process that he was put through going through the U.S. Senate.
And I wanted everyone to understand the one thing I haven't heard people talk about in what I think is a reasonable and measured way is the opportunity cost that a good lawyer pays to be a public servant and a judge.
Everyone in my family but me is a lawyer.
My older brother is a very successful SEC specialist on Wall Street.
My younger brother has a private practice in Montana.
Everyone practices law except me, and I feel very qualified to comment.
I teach economics, so I'm going to talk about the opportunity cost of private practice versus being a judge in the public sector and serving America.
My older brother makes 20 to 30 times as much as any federal judge on a single case.
He has years where he makes 100 times as much as a federal judge does in a year or in a lifetime.
Judge Alito, for 15 years, was making somewhere between $148,000 and $168,000, whatever the pay of the Congress is.
That's what the pay of the federal judiciary is.
And the amount of money, the opportunity cost that he paid every year to serve the public was in the neighborhood of a million to a million and a half bucks easy.
Now, when he goes to sit in front of the Senate, the least that those people can do out of a sense of courtesy is recognize that this guy, in effect, gave the U.S. Federal Treasury $15 million, $20 million in foregone earnings to sit on the federal bench as a public service to America and provide his excellent advice.
Abraham Lincoln said a lawyer's stock and trade are his time and advice.
And judges like my father, judges like Judge Alito, Judge Roberts, forego huge fortunes to serve the public and do it in an honorable fashion.
And to have their integrity, which is the cornerstone of the court, the fact that you can trust the judge to be impartial, the fact that the judge is there to hear the case, decide on the law, send the facts to the jury, and make sure the outcome is as fair as it's possible to be, to impugn the integrity of those people because you don't believe that they have the same political view as you do is just unforgivable.
And it's as bad as it is.
You know what it is?
It's shameful.
And that's what we're lacking.
I mean, we're lacking shame.
We're lacking shame in the country, I mean, overall, so we can't expect to see it in Congress.
But it is shameful.
And, Terry, you make some excellent points, but that's because you're not being cynical.
And we've all become very cynical.
You see, you're right.
People make sacrifices for public service.
People have forgotten that.
There are people who say, well, you made $160,000 a year.
Come on, what kind of a sacrifice is that?
Well, you're right.
He could have been making $1.6 million a year or $2 million a year as a very successful attorney.
Right.
And this country's built on sacrifice.
One of the things that people don't understand today, you know, my niece is getting on a plane in a couple of days to fly back to Crete, where she is a sergeant in the U.S. Army and does Army intelligence.
And she does that out of a sense of duty and sacrifice.
Her father put in 22 years in the service in the U.S. Army.
She's on her way to her sixth or seventh year now.
This is her second tour into Crete.
She does that out of a sense of duty and a sense of sacrifice.
And the fact that other people in this country don't get that and get right on top of it.
And whether you're a judge or a congressman or a soldier, a Marine, an airman, that's about sacrifice.
And when that sacrifice is impugned unfairly and cynically for political gain, it destroys the process and takes away the incentive to be that good soldier, to be that good judge, to be that good lawyer.
And it's a terrible thing to do.
And I really, everyone who watched those hearings and was upset, take action on that.
Write to those senators.
Write to your senator.
If you're in Massachusetts, write to Senator Kennedy and say, that was dishonorable.
That was as bad as Joe McCarthy.
Terry, well thought out.
Well put.
I appreciate the call.
Excellent job on that.
Let's go to Josh, who's in my hometown area of Detroit.
I hope listening on WJR.
Josh, welcome into the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Every morning, Paul W. Michael see you.
Thank you, Josh.
I just wanted to make a point.
I think that the only reason Al Gore's out there making comments is because they did so poorly in the hearings that they need to keep their base salivating, give them something to talk about until they figure out what they're going to do.
Well, you're probably right.
And, you know, if he has aspirations to run for president again, he is as delusional as anybody in the world could possibly be.
Besides the fact that, well, first of all, she who should not be mentioned would suck his brain out and eat him for lunch before he even knew what was happening.
I know what you're talking about, too.
Right.
Yep.
So you're right, though.
He's firing up the base.
You know what he's doing?
He's embarrassing the base.
Oftentimes, it appears that the way these guys think they can fire people up, it's not working.
It's not being very successful.
No, they don't get that, though.
Well, maybe they're catching on.
Josh, thanks for the call.
Keep an eye on Detroit for me, will you?
Appreciate it.
Emile is in Evita Springs, Louisiana.
Emile, welcome in to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thank you for taking my call, Paul.
I used to have respect for Mayor Ray Neagon, but after he can make a comment about that statue, I will never celebrate my birthday again in New Orleans.
You will never celebrate your birthday again in New Orleans.
This is going to rock the economy more than many things that have happened there, Emile.
How did you generally celebrate your birthday there in the French Quarter?
We used to take, for my 20th birthday, we took a big cruise down the Mississippi River and stayed two nights in a hotel room.
And, you know, I called Mayor Ray Nagan the next day and told him how much I respected him.
And then now that he can make a comment like that.
Well, you know, you're making a good point because it does affect the way we look at the city, which is unfortunate for the good people of New Orleans because they're not all like Ray Nagan.
But when he says things like that, my first concern is it's cutting off the funds that people are sending still because they still need help and money.
It's cutting that off.
I never even thought about how it will affect the people like yourself, Emile, who won't go there and spend your tourist dollars, which they're going to need too.
That's a good point.
You know, I'm 24 miles away, but I won't spend my tour sales there again.
Where are you going to go?
And where are you going to go and spend your birthday now, Emil?
It would probably be over to the devastated Mississippi coast.
Once it gets rebuilt, I'll probably go back since I've reached 21 now and go back and spend some more nights in the casino.
Do you do well in the casino, Emile?
Not really, but I try.
Okay.
Of course, anytime you win, I know you're going to report that to the Internal Revenue Service.
Emil?
Emile?
Hello, Emile?
Oh, she's gone.
But they're listening, Emile.
And in fact, they may even have dialed up into your account and your cell phone.
Stay with us on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thank you, Johnny Donovan.
What a pleasure and a privilege it is being here.
You want to check out Rush?
Check out RushLimbaugh.com, and you'll see him playing a little golf at the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
You can check in with us at 800-282-2882.
That's 800-282-2882.
And we're checking in with Steve Schmidt from the White House.
He is a deputy assistant to the president and counselor to Vice President Cheney.
As you know by now, the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to vote January 24th on Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.
Full Senate is to begin the debate the following day.
All they are asking for is a fair up or down vote, which seems fair but has been difficult in some of these judicial cases.
And we want to find out what Steve Schmidt is thinking about this and what the White House is thinking.
Steve, welcome to the program.
It's great to be with you.
Thanks for having me.
Now, what is your concern?
The hearings went well.
There's no question that all 10 Republicans have indicated their support.
So far, none of the Senate's 55 Republicans have announced any opposition to the nomination, meaning that Judge Alito can be confirmed with GOP votes alone.
You even have Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, being the first Democrat that I'm aware of, to announce that he too will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
What's the concern?
Well, that was great to see last night that Senator Nelson from Nebraska came out and announced his support for one of the most exceptionally qualified men who has ever been nominated to the Supreme Court.
You know, the hearings last week, we saw Judge Alito do a masterful job, but I think the American people were very disappointed by the annex of the Democrats on that committee.
I don't think those Democrats on that committee are necessarily representative of Democrats as a whole in the United States Senate, but the grandstanding, the smears, and the attacks were unfortunate.
And I think the American people didn't particularly care for it.
And I think a lot of Americans watch those hearings.
As we speak right now, Senator Reed is leading his caucus meeting with the Democrat senators.
And I think we'll have a sense later this afternoon how they intend to treat this nomination.
I mean, I hope that on the floor debate we can see some of the dignity that was missing out of these committee hearings.
And he certainly does deserve a quick and timely vote to be confirmed.
And we certainly have majority support at this point for his confirmation.
Steve Schmidt with us on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
Steve is deputy assistant to the president, counselor to the vice president, and has been responsible for managing Judge Alito's confirmation process.
And is there something you can give us a heads up on that you might be concerned about?
If you can get ahead of the onslaught of negative commercials that we'll see in the next several days, if there's a last-minute allegation that you've gotten a snippet of that you'd like to nip in the bud right now, is there anything you can give us a heads up on, Steve?
Well, you know, at the beginning of this process, a woman named Nan Aaron, who heads one of these very much outside the mainstream ultra-left-wing groups that have opposed the judge's nomination, she was quoted in the newspaper saying, we will do anything to stop Judge Alito.
And I take them at their word for it.
This is the coalition that when Chief Justice Roberts went through this earlier this summer, they put up the ads accusing him of being complicit in the bombing of abortion clinics.
And I think they'll keep up the attacks on Judge Alito right to the end.
The American Bar Association, 300 judges and lawyers, has rated him well-qualified.
You had an unprecedented appearance by federal judges, sitting federal judges at the committee, Democrat and Republican appointed judges all testifying about his character and his integrity.
The attacks will keep on coming, but they haven't made a dent on them so far.
They're going to keep coming, though.
And I think it's important for your listeners to know that the attacks that we've seen, they are so dishonest.
Are you kind of saying that there are attacks on his integrity and on his opinions?
Are you kind of saying maybe out of desperation we ain't seen nothing yet?
It could get really ugly in the next several days.
Well, I don't know.
I hope not.
I hope not.
I don't think the American people have an appetite for it.
Frankly, I don't think a lot of the senators That Democrat senators, for example, that aren't on that committee have much of an appetite for it.
I'm sure that a lot of Democrat senators turned their TV on at the end of the night to check in what had happened at those hearings and said, What on earth are they doing?
Just like a lot of Americans came home from work and saw the grandstanding and the smearing and didn't like it.
Judge Alito, I've gotten to know him very well.
He's a good and decent man.
He's going to be a great Supreme Court justice.
And what I worry about and what I think is unfortunate is a total degrading of this process.
Where, for example, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg went through it, a Clinton appointee was general counsel of the ACLU.
She got 98 votes.
This partisanship is new to the judicial confirmation process, largely, and it's unfortunate and it's not a good development.
No, it isn't.
I agree with you.
And as Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska put it, because of Judge Alito's impeccable judicial credentials, the American Bar Association's strong recommendation and his pledge that he would not bring a political agenda to the court, it's going to be hard for others to try to knock that down because it seems to me that's what you're looking for in a person for the highest court of the land.
That's absolutely right.
He's not a political candidate.
He's been a federal judge for 15 years.
There's not a hint of bias, a hint of a political agenda.
He's been meticulously fair.
He's exceptionally qualified.
Frankly, you should get 100 votes out of the Senate.
We know that that's not going to happen.
We know that his vote total will be less than the 78 votes that Chief Justice Roberts received earlier in the summer.
But he will be confirmed, and hopefully over the next week, we will see a more dignified process.
And I think it's important for your listeners today to call your Democrat senators, especially in red states that supported the president.
Say, you have a choice here.
You can vote the values of our state or you can vote Ted Kennedy's values.
But those are mutually exclusive in large parts of the country.
Ted Kennedy's values.
Oh, that was well put.
That ought to go out on the email for everybody to use.
You can vote the values of our state or Ted Kennedy's values.
That'll be effective.
Steve, nice talking with you.
Terrific.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you so much.
Steve Schmidt is deputy assistant to the president and counselor to Vice President Cheney, working on Judge Sam Alito's confirmation process, as he has been for some time.
Back to you on the phone at 800-282-2882.
That's 800-282-2882.
And it's Rhonda's turn in Greenville, North Carolina.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program, Rhonda.
Thank you.
I have a point to make about what we value most.
Is the legacy of our country more equated in dollar bills or in what we need to do to make sure that we do the proper and appropriate things to respect what our founding fathers gave so much for to put in place?
The idea of losing any salary seems insignificant to me when you think about what is at stake right now.
And as far as counting votes on Alito, we don't need to go in the back room and play footsie and make a deal to get extra votes.
What we need to do is work harder to have more senators in place to be able to honestly vote the right way.
Well, Rhonda, you know, I love the way you think, but of course it's just not realistic.
And the fact of the matter is, unless you're prepared to say, let's say, because you must be referring to what we talked about, what Terry from Prescott, Arizona called about some time ago, the opportunity cost and the money that someone like a Judge Alito actually gives up to do public service.
And I appreciate what you're saying.
Losing the salary that's insignificant to upholding the Constitution and our country and all of that.
So, are you here to say that we will then wipe out all the expenses, normal living expenses that a Supreme Court justice has, that we will, as a country, wait, wait, wait, that we as a Rhonda then you're saying that in that case, then we'll cover his college education for his kids and we'll make his house payment and his car payment because money isn't important, so so be it.
I think Judge Alito has lived in such a way that he's already put a lot of things in place and he is willing.
Judge Alito was so calm and so reserved and so statesmanlike, even though his wife was watching and she was emotionally affected.
Let's face it, women in their love are sometimes a little more emotional when they're watching someone else being mattered.
They could take it better themselves.
But Judge Alito, I'm sure, has already put financial things in place, and he has made the decision to step forward and serve in a way that we so desperately need.
And if you look at the way so, then you mean that only people who have been fortunate enough, or in this case, worked hard enough and smart enough to be able to amass some wealth to cover their bills should be the ones that then run for office and that we try to put in those positions?
You're twisting it again because that's not.
No, I don't know.
Here's what I'm doing.
I'm trying to figure out what it is you really want to say.
Well, what I'm really wanting to say is that we've gotten away from what our country was founded upon.
We have politicians in Washington, D.C. instead of statesmen.
And our country was not founded on people becoming career politicians.
It was founded more on an issue of people going and giving their time when it was their time to go and serve.
These were not supposed to be.
Right.
And then they were supposed to go back to their other job, and they were supposed to go back to their regular job and be with the people.
And that way you kept a fresh lineup of people.
Trust me, I understand.
Unfortunately, that led to term limits, which I'm totally against.
Why would we want to limit who we can vote for for an office?
Exactly, my point.
I would like to encourage people to say to the Ted Kennedys and the Leahies, we're going to go in there and we're going to take it.
We're going to let you sit up there and spout, but then we're going to go out and we're going to show exactly who you are and what you do in private.
I would love to see a reporter go up on Capitol Hill and take a camera and pick up some business cards and see exactly who all the lobbyists are crawling around in the hallways making the deals.
Now, that would be a story.
That would be a story, Rhonda.
Thanks for your call.
I appreciate it.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
EIB and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
You log on to rushlimbaugh.com.
You can watch Rush playing a little golf out there at the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
We're taking your calls at 800-282-2882, 800-282-2882.
And Tom is on his cell phone calling in from Memphis, Tennessee.
Welcome to the program, Tom.
Thank you, Paul.
I have to respectfully completely disagree with your point about term limits.
I live in Memphis, Tennessee, and it's the only way that we're ever going to fix this city with the local politicians we have is to institute term limits.
We have a charter commission coming up, I believe, later on this year to fix that problem.
And that's the only hope we have locally.
And I think we could extend that all the way up, you know, up to our national politicians.
Tom, I understand.
I've heard the argument a million times.
I appreciate it.
You and I just will disagree on this.
this.
I don't think there's any way I can convince you to change your mind, and I'm pretty certain there's no way you can convince me to change my mind.
Mine is simply that I don't want, as a voter, to limit my choices.
I don't want anybody telling me who I can and cannot vote for.
I should take the responsibility as an informed voter to vote for or vote out the people that should or shouldn't be there.
Right.
Well, I just I used to fall into that camp, but George Will, he wrote an article several years ago, I believe paraphrasing him.
I had to, basically, he said, you know, he was drug kicking and screaming into it, but he believes in term limits now.
Well, and I respect George Will, but I'm not there yet.
I'm just not with you on that one, Tom, or with George on that one.
Right.
Well, I appreciate it.
Yeah, well, I'm glad you called in.
I'm glad that you understood that this is a program that welcomes people in who have different opinions and ideas because the people who don't like this program, the people who say bad things about the Rush Limbaugh program, generally don't really listen to it.
They've heard about things that are on it, or when they do listen, they only hear it in a certain way with kind of a twisted ear.
The fact of the matter is we're open to all kinds of ideas here, ones that we agree with and ones that we don't.
Thanks for the call, Tom.
Roy is in Dearborn, Michigan.
I think listening on my radio station, WJR.
Hello, Paul.
Hello, Roy.
Dearborn, home of Henry Ford, even though I'm a GM worker.
All right.
Good for you.
Just wanted to call because I know even from being from the Detroit area that there is a lot of Democrats that are not far left.
They are conservative Democrats that they go hunting and fishing and they drive SUVs and they go to church on Sunday and things like that.
They don't agree with abortion.
I ask a lot of these guys that I work with in the factory.
They're basically conservative, but they're only getting the news because of the liberal news media.
And it's just, you know, it's kind of just made them go in that direction when it comes time for voting and things like that.
Well, and because their union, for example, there in Dearborn and Ron Gettelfinger, I like Ron very much.
We disagree on virtually every political issue we could possibly talk about, but I respect that he has a tough job.
But those Democrats that are not far left are led by and members of, because they have to be, of a union that would be considered, at least in the scheme of things, by maybe my measure and yours as well, Roy, as being far left.
Yeah, well, you know, in the factory I work with, there's about 280 people, and I'll say five of them are Republican.
And the other thing is, too, that's very important that maybe you don't know or other people don't know, the Rush Limbaugh show, the Sean Hannity show, AM radio does not come in in factories.
So, like, I have to tape the program with my radio on the outside wall of a building to listen to it later.
And because of all the machinery and stuff in there, it won't come in.
And so I think a lot of factory people don't get to hear that unless they go through the extremes that I do.
You know, that is an excellent observation because they let you wear headphones when you work in the line and all that.
No, oh, no.
I was going to say, that sounds pretty dangerous.
No, but people have radios.
They can listen to FMs.
On their brakes, on their brakes or whatever.
Well, no, even when they're working, they're allowed a little radio.
I see.
And if it bothers someone, they can tell the supervisor and he could say, okay, you have to turn that down or something.
But that usually doesn't happen.
So some people listen to me.
That's an excellent point that only FM is coming in there.
So, you know, we already know that the demise of Western civilization, as we know, it starts with FM radio.
But anyway, I'm just kidding.
Are we on any FM stations?
We have any FM affiliates?
I love FM.
No, but you know, the one you're listening to right now is your favorite radio station and mine.
But the point being this: does high-definition radio affect any of this?
I have no idea.
That's the latest thing that's happening in AM radio.
So, Roy, I don't know if that's going to change.
I don't know if we're going to be able to go into buildings now and under bridges without cutting out.
I hope that's what high-definition radio is going to be.
Of course, this program, the Rush Limbaugh program, has always been high-definition radio.
Maybe we are being jammed on the workflow, Kit.
That's an interesting thought.
But Mamon is saying, we got to go.
Stand by.
We're going to talk about Iran with a guy who in 1998 tracked this renegade Saudi financier.
His name, Osama bin Laden.
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