I would like to assemble a roundtable of White House Press Corps reporters.
Maybe four or five of them and give them a pop quiz on other news happening in this country and around the world and see if they know about it.
Because I'll bet you they don't.
I'll bet you all they know about is this Cheney.
Let me tell you what happened on the John Gambling show at our flagship New York Station, WABC.
Ann Compton, ABC White House correspondent, was on with John Gambling.
And Gambling said, what besides Cheney Gates being talked about in the White House?
And Ann Compton said, absolutely nothing.
This has sucked the oxygen out of President Bush's trip yesterday.
He went all the way to the Wendy's Hamburger headquarters in Ohio to talk about health care.
Is that on the front page of any paper today?
I didn't do a single spot on it yesterday.
Proudly, she says.
Compton says, you know, Cheney Gate really has dominated everything.
It's a fascinating story and one that ABC has reported very, very vigorously at the ground level and I think very responsibly.
So Gambling said, well, Ann, let me ask you a question.
Is anybody talking about this story about the Dubai Ports World Corporation running our major ports in the United States?
You know anything about that?
Compton said, whoops, and started laughing nervously because she had no clue.
And Gambling said, the reason I ask you is exactly what you just finished talking about.
Sucking the oxygen out of the White House, the Washington press course is like letting Saudi Arabia do security in our airports.
And I think the Washington reporters need to jump on this thing.
And Compton said, well, send me a quick email, John.
Sounds like something I need to see.
She's asking a talk show host to inform her about the possibility that this Dubai ports outfit might buy and operate six ports, one in New York, one in New Jersey, in this country.
Now, they're working on stopping this, by the way.
That's the latest.
She didn't know a thing about it.
I wonder what else, if we could assemble a little roundtable of David Gregory and Bill Plant and two or three others and just give them a pop quiz and ask them what they know about Al Gore's speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
What do they know about any news story that has nothing to do with Cheney?
It's hilarious.
It's hilarious.
And it is so illustrative.
Greetings, folks.
Welcome back.
Rush Quimboy here, the cutting edge of societal evolution.
We are here on the EIB network.
And if you'd like to be on the program 800-282-2882 and the email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
Just got a great email from Walter in the Simi Valley of California.
And Walter says that he knows exactly, he knows exactly what's going on with this whole Cheney situation.
He's got it nailed down.
And when I read his email, I said, you know, he's really performing a public service.
So, Brian, in Wilmington, North Carolina, I know you're still out there because I know you're here every day, Brian.
And I know a lot of you libs are out there.
Let me tell you, I think this is probably everything that you're looking for.
The reason that it took so long to release details of the hunting accident, Dick Cheney and Harry Whittington, is that Whittington is actually dead.
And they had to go out.
It took them about eight hours to go find a double for Mr. Whittington because he's so, he's actually not, he's brain dead.
He's so injured that he's being held captive.
He's somewhere, same place they have JFK, the same place Elvis is.
And there's a body double and a facial double in the hospital that is being, we're being told is Harry Whittington, but it's not.
They had to go out.
Had to find a phony Harry Whittington.
If you look closely at the difference between the photos taken before and after the shooting, you can plainly see the difference between the dead, the brain-dead Harry Whittington and the imposter that Cheney and the Secret Service had to go find and put there in the hospital room.
And this guy's not going to get out of the hospital anytime soon, despite the news that he's doing well.
It's going to be a while before he gets out because they got to do some plastic surgery and make sure he is as close to looking like Harry Whittington.
They got to do what they can to make him a lawyer and so forth.
Well, no, there are after photos.
They haven't shown them to us.
You're saying, what a before and after photo.
No, there are after photos.
We just haven't seen them.
So the bottom line is Cheney got the guy.
He got the guy.
Whittington's brain dead.
All those pellets went to the brain.
All these diagrams of the pellets in the heart area and so forth.
All this talk about he had a heart attack.
That's just an excuse to keep the body, the double, in the hospital longer so you can do the plastic surgery to make him look more and more like Miss Whittington.
They're spending time with Mrs. Whittington, getting her up to speed on this, the family, the kids, and they're reading them the Riot Act.
If they don't go along with this, they get shot too, and they'll never be heard from again.
That's the truth, Libs.
That's what you need to be looking at.
You're missing the point when you focus on was Cheney drunk or was he sending a message to Scooter Libby?
That's all that's chump change.
Penny Aunt the fact is, Whittington died.
And they're keeping him exactly where they're keeping JFK because he brain dead and they're where they're keeping Elvis.
Now, I have a story here.
Now, this is this is that what?
What?
Snerdley's saying, Rush, you better close the loop on this because when the producers at CNN play this are Bill Schneider, no, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, he'll do a poll on it.
See, what are the possibilities that Whittington is dead and that they're working on a double and making him look as much like Whittington?
He'll go out and do a poll on it.
No, no, no.
I, I, I, I, um, I stand by it.
I'm trying to help the libs.
The libs are just, as usual, are aiming at the wrong place, and they're not firing on all barrels or cylinders.
I mean, if you're going to concoct a theory, you got to, you got to, you got to get it right.
You got to be bold.
You have to be fearless.
You have to be reckless out there when you want to get to the truth when it involves Cheney.
We all know that.
And to just say he's drunk, I mean, you're giving Cheney a pass.
Cheney kills people.
Everybody knows it.
Especially you, Libs.
Whittington's dead.
I wouldn't be surprised if the family's been flown down to Brazil by now, never to be heard from again.
Now, let me get back to what I was going to say.
I have a piece here, and it's from The Onion.
The Onion.
So it's satire.
It is a parody.
But what amazes me is that it is a parody.
Because given all the money that we spend on surveys these days and given how wacky environmentalists and animal rights people are, when I first read this, there was just a little part of me said, this could be true.
Study, dolphins not so intelligent on land.
Although dolphins have long been celebrated for their high intelligence and for appearing to have a complex language, a team of researchers at the University of Florida reported Monday that these traits are markedly less evident on dry land.
According to study researchers, a group of 25 bottlenose dolphins removed from their holding tanks failed 11 exercises designed to test their basic cognitive abilities and reasoning skills.
Look, these dolphins were incapable of recognizing and repeating simple gestures, said the study co-author Dr. Scott Lindell.
Their nonverbal communications were limited to a rapid constriction and expansion at a blowhole, various incomprehensible fin motions, and heavy tremors while they lay prone on the lab table.
After capturing the dolphins from the ocean, Lindell and his colleagues tagged them, placed them under the intense high-wattage lights of a moisture-proof lab.
The researchers then administered an extensive battery of tests designed to measure everything from the dolphins' self-awareness to their aptitude for writing and reading comprehension on land.
Dolphins have a popular reputation for being excellent communicators, Lindell said, but our study group offered only three types of responses to every question we posed.
A nonsensical labored wheezing, an ear-splitting barrage of unintelligible high-pitched shrieks, and in extreme cases, a shrill, distressed scream.
Even the dolphins' proven ability to navigate through a form of sonar called echolocation was ineffective on land.
The military has claimed great success in training these mammals, utilizing their echolocation skills to detect mines that have been placed underwater, said Lindell, who conducted a similar experiment, and there's a picture of this, by the way.
Similar experiment in a concrete parking lot.
We were unable to replicate the finding ourselves that dolphins could zero in using echolocation on landmines.
In most cases, the dolphins succeeded in finding landmines only when we placed them directly on top of the mines.
So we can't conclusively say that they found the landmines.
They just behaved totally different on land.
In another test, several pounds of mackerel were placed on the ground, separate from or separated from the test dolphins by only 20 feet of concrete.
The dolphins were unable to reach the food and feed themselves.
Despite their failures in the initial series of tests, the animals were given further opportunities to demonstrate their intelligence on land.
The dolphins were unable to display novel behaviors.
They were unable to use a map to pinpoint their location on campus, so that means they have no spatial reasoning.
And they were unable to complete a simple obstacle course and wall climb.
Their learning curve was actually negative, Lindell said.
The more time we gave them to complete basic land-based tests, the more pitiful their efforts became, many of them opting to bask in the sun rather than perform simple tasks.
And in some cases, the dolphins appear to be looking directly into our eyes as if pleading with us to help them perform better in the test.
Many scientists believe these findings may help to explain why dolphins, for all their vaunted intelligence, have never developed technology or agriculture or harnessed the power of fire, skills still exclusively in the domain of Homo sapiens.
Well, this is my point.
All along, everybody's been telling me how smart these things are.
So where are the hospitals undersea?
Where are the emergency rooms?
Where's a highway system?
And I actually had a guy call me with, Rush, they don't have hands.
Said the researcher Lindell, their failure is a great disappointment to all of us who once felt an intelligence-based kinship with these majestic animals.
Now, this satire, this is on theonion.com.
But as I say, I would not be surprised if a bunch of people got some federal money to actually do a study like this.
Throw some dolphins in a parking lot, put some orange cones, and see if they can negotiate the obstacle course.
That's how absurd all this scientific research has gotten, all these differing results, conflicting data, and all the money we're spending on a debut.
A quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue right after these important messages that contribute to the obscene EIB profit bottom line.
And greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
El Rushbo here, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, despair, death, murder, conviction, and even the good times.
800-282-2882.
Want to go back to the audio sound bites.
Good morning, America, today.
James Carville was being interviewed by Charlie Gibson.
And by the way, you know, there's some deceit here because James Carville's first name is actually Chester.
And he goes by the name of James.
Do we really know that this is James Carville?
Do we need to investigate this?
How do we know he's who he says he is?
His actual name is Chester.
Anyway, the question.
James, let me come to how Cheney handled it because he said the reason he let this woman, Catherine Armstrong, call a local paper was because he wanted to make sure everything was accurate.
But when she called the paper, she said it was Whittington's fault for not identifying himself.
And the vice president himself said that it was his fault.
Everything that we were told at the beginning turned out not to be the case.
It's a very simple thing to need to do.
Number one, release the blood alcohol, Mr. Whittington's blood.
Number two, release the after-incident report that you know that the Secret Service is filed.
No one believes a word that they say.
They go on, and again, it was all blame Harry.
Then Harry was peppered, but actually, Harry was shot and hot.
And there was Zippo booze.
Well, maybe there was a beer.
And, you know, it just goes on and on.
And somebody's got to stand up and say they didn't tell the truth about a rock.
They didn't tell the truth about the deficit.
Why would anybody there be tell the truth about this?
All right.
So there's the talking point.
Didn't tell the truth about a rock.
Didn't tell the truth about the deficit.
Hey, why would we expect him to tell the truth about this?
All right, here's my question: I want to know: was James Carville drunk this morning on Good Morning America?
Anyone take his blood alcohol readings?
Not saying he was.
I'm not saying he was.
I'm just wondering.
He seemed to be slurring his speech a little bit there, and he wasn't making any sense.
So are we going to assume he's drunk?
Something has to explain the nonsense that just came out of his mouth there.
Something I bet you didn't know.
Carville has a winter home at Area 51.
Here's Jack in Church Point, Louisiana.
Welcome.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello, Church.
How are you?
Thank you.
Hello, Church.
How are you?
Oh, I'm fine.
Just doing well.
Good.
Listen, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for myself for you being such a great American.
And I really appreciate the way you present information to us, your listening public.
You treat us like we're thinking adults and don't talk down to us or treat us like second-class citizens like a lot of politicians do.
And I really intruce that.
And that guy that talked to you earlier just really had me fuming.
Well, you do a wonderful job.
I thank you.
You know something?
I really do appreciate you saying that because you talk to people who know me.
If I finish a program that I thought was not as good as it could have been and then talk to people about it, I will always tell them it's because I think I let the audience down, plus myself.
But this program has always been about the audience.
It's not about PR.
It's not about spin.
It's not about anything else other than the audience, meaning respecting the audience, empathizing, And realizing that the people in this audience are intelligent and want to be treated as such.
And that's so I'm happy that you have noted that and that that's the way you react to it because that is exactly how this program is conducted.
Thank you so much.
Patty in Bellingham, Washington.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Maharashi, what a pleasure it is to talk to you.
Thank you so much.
Greetings from Blessry Bellingham.
Listen, this is what I told your screener that I wanted to talk about, okay?
You know, I don't pretend to tie half of my brain behind my back to make it fair for other people, but something I do have is common sense, okay?
So my contention today is that the same people who are so ready to label Cheney, Dick Cheney, a liar are those very people who were eager to believe that Clinton didn't inhale.
How do you explain that?
Not only did Clinton didn't inhale.
Well, I got a line.
I cannot use it.
Because of my respect for the audience, I will not use it.
Not only did Clinton not inhale, he also didn't do what he did with Monica.
They believed that.
They thought it was a right-wing conspiracy.
Rush, would you like another one?
By all means.
Okay.
Because I know how much you like the swimmer, and I'm with you on this one, okay?
During the Alito hearings, the day after Mrs. Alito was reduced to tears, and Ted Kennedy launched into a five-minute tirade about how mistakes, right?
He's made more than his share of mistakes.
Okay?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't mistakes something you do by accident?
Things that are not intentional?
Not necessarily.
I know where you're going with this, and I'm not trying to steal your thunder, but I believe in answering questions as honestly and thoroughly as I can when they're put to me.
And I think a lot of people make mistakes while they think they're doing the right thing.
I think a lot of people make mistakes while they think, I mean, I don't think most people intend to make mistakes.
And I think people look back in their lives, for example.
Rush, can I just interrupt you for a second?
Well, yes, I'll play the husband.
Go right ahead.
I do agree with you.
But where Ted Kennedy is concerned, what he displays, I have to disagree.
That's why I say I didn't want to steal your thunder.
I know what you're talking about, Chapaquiddick.
That was not a mistake.
He acted purposely to save his own skin, blah, neck brace and all.
I just have a different theory about your question.
I'll explain the theory when we come back from another EIB obscene profit center timeout.
Duba Duba.
Baba Duba Duba.
Back we are to the phones we go to Long Island.
Fred, welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Rush, guys, talking to you.
I mean, I have a question here among all these very important headlines the so-called mass media is giving to us these days.
I came over a line of the Iranian president Ahmadinejad who came along stating that Europe will have to pay the price for supporting Israel.
Now, I wonder what your take is on this.
Is he revealing his target map?
Well, we talked about this last week when this happened two weeks ago.
The mainstream media hadn't gotten around to this yet.
They may not even know that he said it.
This is this old Mahmood.
Mahmood is out there saying that the Holocaust didn't happen.
He wants to move Israel back to Europe and let the Europeans deal with the Jews.
threatening nuclear enrichment and so forth.
Nobody's paying any attention.
It just doesn't register.
You have to understand.
I think one of the reasons for it is that the left, and I'm being serious now, the left and the Democrats and the media have all put forth the notion that this is not a dangerous world.
We are not a great nation at risk in a dangerous world.
There's no need for the war on terror.
There's no need to go to Iraq.
Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction.
And he wasn't trying to get yellow cake to enrich uranium from Niger.
Joe Wilson proved that.
And Valerie Plam had her career destroyed.
Bush lied.
Now, against that backdrop, and that's the basis of the Democrat Party's hoped for reclamation of power in these elections this year and in 2008.
You can't use that platform and then all of a sudden start wailing and moaning about the threat posed by Iran.
Because then you have to agree that, oh, we've got to do something about it.
And when's the last time the Libs wanted to do anything about a real threat to this country?
I can't remember it.
Maybe they did sign on.
Some of them signed on the first Gulf War.
Well, they all signed on to this Iraq war when they thought that's what the people wanted, but they really didn't mean it.
That was all political posturing.
So this guy, Mahmoud, by the way, make sure you understand the real power in Iran still resides in the Ayatollahs.
And the head honcho Ayatollah is Ayatollah Khomeini.
This guy, Mahmoud, is the, I mean, he's president and he was elected, quote unquote, but he's active, but he's a figurehead.
The real puppeteer in that country is Ayatollah Khomeini.
Or not Khomeini, it's close.
Khomeini, not Khomeini.
It's Ayatollah Khomeini.
So this guy is the one to watch.
But the Democrats and the media, the left can't start warning about Iran.
Well, that would mean we'd have to do something about it.
And would also, remember, Bush said that Iran was one of the three nations in the axis of evil.
Well, Bush can't be right about anything.
Same thing with North Korea.
Folks, you have to understand who your Democratic Party is today and what they are and the media.
There are no threats.
Bush is making it all up.
We actually are living in a pre-9-11 America.
That 9-11, that was just one of those things.
You know, those things are going to happen now and then.
And we can't stop it.
They're going to be happening because that's who these people are.
But we don't have an enemy.
There's no reason to go to war over all this.
So that's why these people can't be trusted, folks, to trust to lead the country and defend the national security.
They won't even acknowledge legitimate genuine threats that exist.
An emailer has a great idea.
I love this idea.
Henry Beattie sent this.
He says, Rush, let's take up a collection to send Jamie Powell, the reporter from the Corpus Christi newspaper, send her to Washington to attend the next Bush press conference so that President Bush can call on her first to ask questions.
Would that not be fabulous?
Get her accredited as a White House reporter.
Send her in there and let her ask the first question.
Hey, David Gregory, nice to meet you.
My name is Jamie Powell.
I'm from Corpus Christi.
I broke the story on Dick Cheney killing Wivington.
I know a lot of you.
What did you say?
If you missed the last half hour, I'm not going to repeat it.
Go to the website tonight.
You'll be brought up to speed on it full time.
Ladies and gentlemen, what do we have here?
Oh, interesting.
No charges will be filed.
No charges will be filed against city councilwoman Monica Conyers, the wife of Democratic Representative John Conyers over a bar fight, prosecutors said yesterday.
Monica Conyers and another woman got into a fight in December during a birthday party for a lawyer.
The lawyer's date, Rebecca Mews, appeared on television with a black eye and claimed that Conyers threw the first punch.
Conyers claimed Muse shoved her and she defended herself.
Prosecutor Kim Worthy said a majority of witnesses, including a lawyer, supported Conyers' version of events.
So, Conyer's wife won't be charged in a bar fight.
Did Conyers apologize?
Has there been any apology for this?
Was there a press conference?
Were we told about this when this happened?
Does the press even care about this?
Do I care?
No, I don't care about it.
Here's I know the first accounts I do remember made it sound like they were both fighting over a guy.
It certainly did, but we'll never know.
From the New York Times, Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland did not violate the First Amendment rights of two Baltimore Sun reporters by prohibiting state employees from talking to them.
This, a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond in November 2004, the governor's press orifice issued a directive instructing every employee of the state's executive branch not to speak to David Nitken, a political reporter at the Baltimore Sun, or Michael Olesker, a columnist who has since left the paper.
Do not return calls or comply with any request, the directive said.
The reason for the ban, it explained, was that the two reporters are failing to objectively report on any issue dealing with the governor's administration.
In a radio appearance, Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican, said the ban was meant to have a chilling effect on the reporters.
The Baltimore Sun sued the following month, saying that the directive amounted to unconstitutional retaliation against the reporters for exercising their First Amendment rights.
The appeals court affirmed a trial judge dismissing the case in February of 2005.
So, bottom line, you don't have to talk to reporters.
You can pick which ones that you want to talk to.
Bad news for David Gregory and the White House Press Corps.
Who's next?
Mike in Grand Portage, Minnesota.
Welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Hi.
F. Isinado Dittos to you, Rush from Minnesota.
Minnesota.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
It's an honor to talk to you.
And as I told you, Screener, the reason the liberal press hates Cheney so much is because he's such an alpha male.
He's a real man as compared to we had to deal with eight years of Gore who had to share his vice presidency with Hillary and had an image problem and right down to the point when he kissed his wife on stage at Gross Down America because it looked like two women kissed him.
Yeah, but you know, that made women melt.
They love that.
Women are not.
I mean, this alpha male business, I think there's a lot of reasons that people hate Cheney.
This could be one of them is an alpha.
Wait a minute.
Did you just say, did you just say that when Gore kissed his wife, it looked like two women kissing each other?
Yes.
I mean, I hadn't heard that.
I have thought I saw the cover of Carville's book along with the forehead, and they looked like some strange goings-on there with a donkey.
It looked like a little brokeback moment there, but I never associated that with Gore and his wife.
Well, Carvo's another one.
He's a feminist, too.
If you've ever seen his wife, she could kick his butt.
My experience is that every wife can kick her husband's butt.
Back in just a second.
Back in just a second.
All right.
Bear with me on this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to have you with us.
We have a story here by Matt Curry of the Associated Press.
And the slugline on this is Cheney legal.
And this is a CI Told You So from what I mentioned to you yesterday.
I said the media is a bunch of wolf dogs hoping Mr. Wivington dies.
That's the action line of the story.
Whatever will make this as bad as possible for Cheney, that's what they hope for.
So this story is a CI Told You So.
If the man wounded by Dick Cheney dies, the vice president could, in theory, at least, face criminal charges, even though the shooting was an accident.
Pant, pant, we hope, we hope.
Dallas Defense Attorney David Finn, who has been a state and a federal prosecutor, said Wednesday that a Texas grand jury could bring a charge of criminally negligent homicide.
If there is evidence the vice president knew or should have known that there was a substantial or unjustifiable risk that his actions would result in him shooting a fellow hunter.
To indict Cheney, the grand jury would have to conclude that a reasonable person in the vice president's place would say to himself, I am not pulling the trigger because this other guy might be in front of me, Finn said.
The charge carries up to two years behind bars, but with no previous felonies, Cheney would be eligible for probation, the former prosecutor said.
Manslaughter, a more serious charge, would require a prosecutor to prove that Cheney was reckless, which would be virtually impossible under the facts that we know today, said Michael Charlotte, a professor of criminal law at the University of Texas at Austin.
With recklessness, the defendant has to be aware of the risk, but chose to ignore it with negligence.
He doesn't have to be conscious of the risk, but a reasonable person would have been, Charlotte said.
As vice presidency, Vice President Cheney has no immunity from prosecution, so let's nail him.
Mark Skirka, first assistant director, district attorney for the three-county area where the shooting took place, said prosecutors did not have an investigation underway.
Damn it.
If something unfortunate happens, then we'll decide what to do.
Then we'll decide whether we're going to have an investigation or not, said Skirka.
If District Attorney Carlos Valdez decided to pursue charges, he would forward the matter to a grand jury, which would determine whether to indict Cheney.
Valdez, a Democrat, is best known for his prosecution of Yolanda Saldivar, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1995 slaying of Tejano singer Selena.
So went out there and talked to how many four quote-unquote experts.
How can we get Cheney?
I'm calling from the AP.
My name is Matt Curry, and obviously we want Cheney indicted.
We want Mugshot's fingerprints.
We want him in jail.
We want him arraigned.
What would have to happen in order for...
Well, in that scenario, all you'd have to have...
And then they go through all these possibilities.
Right before I started this little monologue, I just received the following flash.
Breaking news from ABCNews.com.
Kennedy County, Texas Sheriff Ramon Salina says no charges will be filed in Vice President Cheney's hunting accident.
Well, after three days of speculating, how can we get the guy arraigned?
How can we get him arrested?
How can we get charges filed?
Let's go talk to all these experts.
We need Whittington to die.
That's what we need.
Whittington needs to kick the bucket.
Whittington needs.
Without that, it's going to be really tough.
Be real easy if that happens.
If Whittington doesn't die, what do we have to do?
Do you remember any such interest in the pursuit of Bill Clinton in the legal system?
No.
So after all of this hard work, after all of this research, after all of these interviews, after all of this digging deep to find out just how we can nail Cheney, the sheriff down there today blows the whole thing up.
Just deflates them.
Ruins their day.
Bulletin, bulletin.
No charges will be filed in the accidental Cheney shooting.
Period.
End of story.
This has not been.
Do you realize the emotional roller coaster the press is on?
Look at on Monday, they are fit to be tied because they weren't given the story.
Then they got involved in all these rumors.
How seriously wounded is this guy?
Was Cheney drunk?
Did he do this on purpose to send a message?
They got all excited.
So they were mad.
Then they got excited.
They got all hopeful.
We're going to get Cheney.
We're finally going to get Cheney.
We're going to nail this guy to the wall.
We've got to get Whittington to get in bad shape, but we're going to get Cheney.
And they're all excited and they're all trumped up.
And they're going on television every night talking to each other about the great job they're doing, asking the important questions.
Well, I don't know anything else going on in the world of the country, but they're asking the important questions.
And now today, all the air is let out of the balloon in one sentence.
No charges will be filed.
The investigation is complete.
Janet in Gross Point, Michigan.
Welcome to the program.
If you know a mainstream journalist, be kind this afternoon and tonight.
Hi, Russ.
And be gentle.
Yes, hi.
Thank you.
I just wanted to tell you something.
I've been listening to you for about 13 years this month, and you've evolved.
When I first started listening to you, it was because of the criticism of you that I used to hear on the Sunday shows.
And it was always like Sam Donaldson.
Well, Rush Limbaugh, he's an entertainer, you know, and his audience loves him.
Well, you're no longer the entertainer, and you haven't been for about 13 years.
You are a news source, and you keep us so well informed.
And the mainstream media and the Sunday shows are the entertainment.
And I look to them to laugh.
And I want to congratulate you on this because you're also the father of the blogosphere, because all the best bloggers follow your techniques.
And I'm sincere in this, and I also want to agree with you that every day is Valentine's Day because you're part of my day.
Oh, that's so melt my hard heart here.
Well, you know something?
I appreciate that, but you're very perceptive because it was about 13 years ago that I started saying we are doing the job the mainstream press used to do.
That became a frequent utterance.
And so I appreciate your perceptiveness.
We have ringing evidence all day of the brilliance and intelligence of members of this audience.
The only thing, Janet, the only thing, there are entertainment values in this presentation each and every day, but they all are oriented toward the same objective, and that is informing, educating, persuading, and the like.
So I really appreciate it.
I appreciate it so much.
You didn't.
You melted my heart out there because I didn't get one Valentine.
I didn't get one Valentine.
Oh, I got an email.
So did you get a thousand Valentines?
He said, no, I didn't get one.
So somebody sent me an electronic Valentine.
But it's okay, folks, because nobody knows where to send me one.
And I like it that way.
Back in just a second.
Too bad old Ronnie Earl can't expand his jurisdiction to this hick Texas county that's not going to indict Cheney.
Maybe they could send Patrick Fitzgerald down there.
Maybe the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office could look into it.
At any rate, folks, have a pleasant day, the remainder of the day, and understand, we got to hope that it doesn't become Jonestown in the White House press corps today in the White House.