All Episodes
Previous Next
March 10, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:20
March 10, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
I told everybody, I told you people yesterday on this program that the ports deal wasn't over.
You will not believe.
You will not believe where this is headed now in the media.
But I told you this this is gonna have this is gonna have legs, it's gonna have a lasting effect.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
The EIB Network, America's anchor man, Rush Limboy.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
And I have to tell you, folks, I'm ecstatic and I'm happy that the ports deal is still in the news.
Something about this story I just love because there's so much more here than what the reactionary um reaction to this caused.
At any rate, open line Friday, let me explain the rules for those of you who are new to the game.
Monday through Thursday, we only talk about what I care about.
I'm not gonna sit here and be bored Monday through Thursday and you would be bored if I sat here and talked about things I don't care about.
But on Friday, I uh I take a tremendous career risk because when we go to the phones, I will engage phone calls from people who might want to talk about things I don't care about.
It's your golden opportunity here to talk about whatever.
If you think uh something hasn't been discussed and needs to be, if you whatever question or comment, this is the day to do it.
Telephone number 800 282-2882 is uh is the number.
If you want to go the email uh uh route, it's rush at EIB net.com.
All right, uh you have to hear this.
It happened on Good Morning America this morning.
We have a montage of the host, uh, the estimable Charlie Gibson.
Uh ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman and correspondent Jessica Yellen.
Listen to this.
Did the White House secretly kill the deal?
ABC News has learned the White House asked the Dubai company to back out in order to save the president political embarrassment.
There's a new question this morning, and that is whether the company pulled the plug on the deal at the request of the White House.
This morning, ABC News has learned from a source close to the negotiations that the White House made it clear to Dubai ports that they should withdraw from this deal and save the president from political embarrassment.
All right.
Now, is this not amazing?
Here the media, the Democrats got exactly what they wanted, and now they're gonna try to turn this or say Bush pulled a fast one on us.
Bush snuck this bias.
The deal is done.
Dubai ports is out.
The uh the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates is angry.
They're threatening of withdrawing all kinds of support.
They're threatening today to make us pull all of our military bases and so forth out of the United Arab Emirates.
I doubt that'll happen, but and now all of a sudden, all of a sudden they want to sniff around and find some secret deal that Bush made with the ports people to pull the deal.
In the meantime, uh what Congress did yesterday, I it this it just boggles the mind, folks.
This whole story just boggles the mind.
And now they're looking around to try to to uh implicate Bush in something that's that's not a scandal.
Would it be a scandal if Bush did ask the port people to pull out of it?
Uh tell you what, I if you don't feel manipulated by this whole story by now, you are never going to end up uh feeling manipulated, and thus you will not understand what's actually happened here.
We have a bunch of paranoid protectionists.
This is almost a repeat of what Perot was talking about back in 1992 and that giant sucking sound.
You know, all we're doing that we're just in the midst of of uh numerous economic cycles, and in these cycles that uh there are certain American businesses that have hard times, and here come these fear mongers that drive by media and everybody just throwing bullets and mortar fire into the crowd and shaking everybody.
Ooh, protectionism, we're losing jobs, we're losing manufacturing.
Now this we're gonna be attacked by terrorists if this company bought the ports.
And it's not even ports, it's terminals.
His story still, and you know what's throughout the media?
I've got a bunch of stacks of stuff today, and in the stacks are all the details that make it okay.
We're getting the LA Times has an editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle has a story.
Oh what's that?
Who?
Washington Post has an editorial.
It was all it was a good deal.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
Where you been the past three weeks?
This is a classic of the drive-by media.
Did everything they could to kill the deal.
Now the deal is dead, and now they're running stories, you know, this wouldn't have been a bad thing to do.
And you've even got the Democrats up there admitting that they played off of people's xenophobia and racism.
Yes, sir, Bobkin.
Right here, it's in this, it's in this uh San Francisco Chronicle story.
The collapse of the Dubai port deal was a victory for the politics of fear.
This is Mark Sandelau, who is the Chronicles uh Washington Bureau chief.
Democrats saw an opportunity to exploit the terrorism anxieties that have been.
You know, I'm reading these stories, it is everything I told you people.
The last three weeks about this.
Everything now all of a sudden this stuff comes out after the deal is done.
The uh this story also uh blames Bush for the racism.
Just as the Democrats, we played the soundbite for you earlier this week.
Oh yeah.
Bush has used the club of fear ever since 9-11 to get Americans to hate Arabs.
And that's why the country reacted's Bush's fault.
So that's a theme that this story also has.
Bush's unrelenting, exaggerated campaign against terrorism.
Unrelenting and exaggerated campaign against terrorism underpenned the environment that doomed the port deal.
Elevated terror warnings from the Department of Homeland Security, the war in Iraq, and regular admonitions in presidential speeches of the looming danger have conditioned many Americans to anticipate the worst.
ABC, Washington Post news poll published Thursday found that one in three Americans believe mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims.
Nearly half of Americans surveyed have an unfavorable opinion of the religion.
The anti-Muslim views are stronger than those expressed even during the anxious months immediately following the 2001 terror attack.
So Bush started all this.
Bush got what he deserved, but the deal really wasn't that bad.
And then this racism had privately, many Democrats conceded, the xenophobic and anti-Arabs strange to their own rhetoric made them uncomfortable.
So they're admitting it.
They're admitting that they were xenophobic and racist in the privately, many Democrats conceded.
The xenophobic and anti-Arab strains to their rhetoric made them uncomfortable.
But opinion polls that showed the issue hurting Bush's popularity and GOP chances in November prompted them to step up their xenophobic and racist attacks.
So what we get here is the Democrats, it was perfectly okay.
They're a little uncomfortable, but it's perfectly okay to be xenophobic and racist because you, the American people were, and all they were doing was reflecting you.
But it's not your fault, it's Bush's, because Bush made you xenophobic and racist against Arabs and Muslims because he's had an unrelenting and exaggerated focus on terrorism ever since 9-11.
And as I told you, resistance to foreign ownership of U.S. port operations spilled over to the aviation arena when a congressional committee told the Bush administration to postpone a plan to allow more foreign control of domestic airlines.
There is this is such an abomination of a lead.
First place, there is no foreign ownership of U.S. ports.
I'm gonna I've I've got a uh a description today of what happens at a port, what happens at a terminal, who owns them, who operates them, what happens at every level, what the security.
I'm gonna run through it for you here in just a moment.
Because nobody's talking about foreign ownership of U.S. ports.
And nobody is talking about foreign control of domestic airlines.
But regardless, it doesn't matter.
Because the xenophobia, the racism, the protectionism, the fear, the hysteria is now going to bleed over to this airline deal.
All this is, the U.S. airline industry has never, the industry as a whole has never shown a profit in a single year.
Individual airlines have, but the industry has not.
And we keep hearing stories.
Yet the airplanes are full and so forth.
And the uh the airlines are just seeking other investors.
We don't allow foreign investors, people to loan money or invest in air, but nobody's talking about control.
But what difference does it make?
Foreign-owned airlines land in this country every day.
From the United Arab Emirates, from Saudi Arabia.
They ought to cancel those flights.
We ought to not allow them to lie.
I mean, the 19 hijackers were Saudies.
This is so silly.
It's it was it was a disgrace.
What happened yesterday?
And I hear people Rush, you're missing the point on this.
You're missing the point.
This was not a disgrace.
This was the American people getting what they want.
Yeah, well.
And Rush, you're also missing a point.
We are a sovereign nation, and it's our responsibility to protect our sovereignty and so forth.
This is a this is so short-sighted a view.
It is so paranoid.
And it just doesn't bother me for the do by people.
I mean, I it it just that the reaction that we saw in Congress yesterday, both parties, and and the the hysteria that was generated by so many Americans against this deal without any knowledge at all of what it was.
Uh combined with uh the fear of politicians getting re-elected in election year.
This is not, this is not one of our finest moments moments.
If you're feeling proud about this one, America finally stood up for itself.
Uh you're making a grave error.
This is nothing to be proud of.
It's something to be ashamed of.
Quick timeout, we'll be back and continue.
Open line Friday right after this.
Seriously, uh have you heard Soros' latest?
He's going after uh Dr. James Dobson as having ties to uh Abramov.
It gets an election year, folks are gonna get brutal out there.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, saving and serving humanity.
I don't know about saving, maybe too late.
We're still going to try.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 as usual.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Now we're going to talk about other things of port deal, because it's open line Friday, and you can talk about if you're sick of the port deal, the easiest way to get around it is call and talk about something else.
But I have just a few more things to say about it.
Uh just to give you an idea, some things on tap today.
The um the Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece today on happiness and housework.
Uh you know, do you realize the myths associated with feminism are all blowing up now?
I mean, it is it is uh here's the latest one.
The division of chores does not cause much marital discord after all.
This the the we've all been told that women hate marriage and they can't say because a husband doesn't do enough around the house.
Doesn't help with the chores.
Bunk doesn't mean anything.
Has no effect on happiness in the marital home.
Women are content to do housework.
They are content to stay home and raise the kids rather than go to work.
They're content being women.
The feminists tried to change all this.
Housework in my home is not a challenge.
Uh somebody dragged out an iron the other day, and it's been so long since I've seen one.
I have what is that?
Uh found another animal, the rat squirrel.
Rat squirrel is not extinct after all.
It has the face of a rat, the tail of a skinny squirrel.
Scientists say this creature discovered living in Central Laos is pretty special.
It's a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.
These people don't know diddly squat.
We have discovered how many new species on these deserted islands somewhere that you got to land a helicopter 11,000 feet up.
So they found the rat squirrel.
There's a picture of it.
It is one it's a combination of cute and ugly.
It it looks as cute as a squirrel, except it does have a rat head or a mouse head.
So now the challenge is to go trap some of these things and calculate how many of them still exist to tell whether the species is endangered.
Uh Harvard, what do we talk about on this program?
Optimism, good cheer.
Can't go to the library and find a book on how to fail because everybody knows how to do that.
The books on how to succeed sell millions.
Uh power positive thinking sells millions.
Anybody motivational speaker earns millions, hundreds of thousands, whatever.
But uh, you know, books on how to be depressed, how to be in a bad mood.
You won't find them in a library because everybody knows how to do it.
Harvard.
They've got one of their most crowded courses is positive psychology, drawing students in droves.
The most popular course at Harvard this semester teaches happiness.
The final numbers came in this week.
Positive psychology, a class whose content resembles that of many a self-help book, but's grounded in serious psychological research, has enrolled 885 or 855, 855 students, beating out even introductory economics.
Uh I'm not going to comment on whether it's good news or not.
It's just it's just news right now.
I think I'm not really sure I believe it.
Harvard and happiness just don't go together to me.
They might that's what they're teaching.
Happiness psychology.
Yeah.
Washington Post cutting 80 newsroom jobs today.
The Washington Post plans to cut at least 80 newsroom jobs through attrition and buyouts, according to the uh sources at the paper who said editors began giving staffers the bad news yesterday in meetings, the bad news will continue today.
My understanding is that the uh editors, the managing editors uh brought this up with other issues of downsizing, but with no layoffs, no layoffs.
We're gonna buy them out or we're just gonna kick them out.
Uh looks like through attrition and buyouts.
Uh so they have 800 editorial employees, so 10% of them are getting whacked.
On the weekend, the Sopranos new season debuts.
And uh now, you know what they'll say when they get around to officially announcing this will not affect the quality of our journalism.
Getting rid of 10% of our staff, it's the quality of the journalism that is leading to the business losses in a otherwise roaring economy that is causing all of these major communications empires, particularly in print, to downsize lay people off, cut back costs wherever they can.
Mike uh sell call, South Dakota.
You're up first on open line Friday.
Welcome.
Uh, thank you, Rush.
It's an honor and a privilege to speak with you.
I missed it.
Thank you, sir.
I understand.
Yes, yes.
Miss your TV show.
I I really enjoy growing up with that.
Um the uh Dubai ports deal, and uh if Congress does, you know, go and try to pass this bill or amendment to um basically outlaw foreign companies to uh to manage the ports for the port authorities, would that now then also allow an employer to discriminate against an individual because of their national origin, saying, you know, I feel you may be a security risk, so I'm not gonna hire you.
Who knows where this is gonna lead?
That's entirely possible.
It is entirely possible since that's the basis on which the deal was killed.
Yeah.
And it's uh it's it's it's entirely possible.
This is the reason I said yesterday that the story is not over is because of the ramifications.
Uh and I can't predict them, nobody can, but uh this this is the intellectually defending this is gonna be a tough thing because based on the reasoning that we uh kick the Dubai Ports World people out.
How can we allow any foreign country to have any investment in this comp in this country if they have ties to terrorism or if they're threatening us in a uh economic or military way like the SHICOMs?
Uh uh United Arab Emirates is never even threatened.
We're we're an ally.
It just it boggles the mind.
But how can we let Air Saudi land in New York?
How can we let the United Arab Emirates Airlines?
How can we land how any ship that is loaded on any port owned by DPW elsewhere around the into this country?
I mean, that if this is just it's it's indefensible in an in in uh in an intellectual sense and an economic sense.
It's entirely indefensible.
And it may lead to this kind of discrimination that is allowed on the basis, well, we must protect our sovereignty and besides we are entitled to be racist.
Bush made us rap.
Bush made us hate Arabs.
He did because he's been exaggerating the terrorism threat for four years.
You watch, folks, this is this is politics is what screwed this up.
That's why it's embarrassing to me.
Back in a moment.
Redefining hypnots on the radio, Rush Limbaugh with talent on loan from God.
All right, so the latest on this ports deal is that uh Bush actually snuck one by everybody.
It was Bush.
It was Bush that called the DPWP.
You gotta pull the deal, save me the political embarrassment.
The media is sniffing around trying to find evidence that Bush might be involved in another scandal by getting the DPW out of the port deal.
This morning on PMS NBC Live, a reporter interviewed uh uh named uh Nora O'Donnell interviewed the Treasury Secretary John Snow.
She said, Let me ask you.
Let me ask you about the statement made by Edward Bilke.
He's the CEO.
Edward Mohammed Bilkey.
CEO of DPW.
He said, Quote, this decision is based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion.
A DP World will not suffer economic loss.
We look forward to working with the Department of Treasury to implement this decision.
What does that mean?
Won't suffer any economic loss?
That means the Treasury Department's guaranteed DP World something.
No.
No.
And I shouldn't be trying to interpret that that statement for the company.
They're they're the best uh source on uh on uh on their own uh they're not talking.
But uh presumably what uh Mr. Bilke meant there is simply that uh they don't want to engage in a fire sale.
Ah, we I mean uh folks, this is this is just an irresponsible uh uh and unprofessional as we would expect the mainstream press to be.
What do you we hate these people so much we want them to suffer a loss, Miss O'Donnell?
What is that mean won't suffer any economic loss?
You want them to suffer an economic loss.
Here's uh here's Mike and in uh Hayden, Idaho.
Mike, welcome to the program.
Hey Rush, Ditto from arguably the most conservative state in the nation.
But uh what I have to say about this is I think the press started this whole thing.
I know that my initial reaction to the reports that I heard was negative.
I was afraid that we were giving the ports away.
And I think that the the idea that the American people got what they want is ridiculous because the American people don't even know what it was about.
We never even had a chance to hear what it was about because it was immediately anti-Bush.
Bush thought of it.
It's Bush's idea, it must be bad.
Well, there's a look, let me tell you there are a lot of bad actors in this deal.
There are a lot, I mean they could say the press did it, but you can't leave out members of Congress.
And by the way, by the way, folks.
This new angle that the press is sniffing around, that Bush and Rove pulled the port deal secretly in a scandal that occurred under the cover of darkness.
Wait a minute.
Wait till Chuck Schumer hears that, because Chuck Schumer is out there trying to make himself the face of opposition to the port deal.
Our brave, our courageous, our thick-spined Republicans in the House, they think they stopped the port deal.
As a lot of people that want the credit for this, and they all deserve it.
It was a group effort that uh that that secured this bunch of insanity.
You know, I I haven't been this worked up about something it's been a since the Clinton years.
It this is just uh uh well, yeah, I was mad about campaign finance reform.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
You're exactly right, I was mad about that because it featured the same thing.
It featured a bunch of ignoramuses being caught up in fear.
We got to get the money out of politics, we gotta get the money out of politics.
Yeah, and you see what happened.
All we did was we we empowered George Soros to be more powerful to the Democratic Party.
Here's Tony and Billings, Montana.
Tony, welcome to the program.
Hey, Rush, thanks a lot.
I just want you to know how much I appreciate you over the years, and I can't.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Uh, one thing thinking about this.
You look at the GOP bailing on this deal and how quickly they turned.
And you know, I don't think it's any coincidence with with Bush's poll numbers, Whether they're accurate or not coming out, and these people trying to distance themselves instead of having a lot of people.
Oh, there's no question.
No question about it.
You're absolutely right.
So I don't I don't know why nobody's brought that up.
I mean everybody trying to protect their election election time.
Uh uh I I I beg was the focus of the program yesterday.
So much so that even my own staff was begging me, would you drop the ports deal story and move on to something else?
Could we talk about the mating habits of the Australian rabid bat?
Anything but the ports exist.
That's exactly what happened.
There was a race.
Republicans and Democrats in a race to see who could cross the finish line first and say, I stopped the port deal.
It was driven by a lot of things.
It was driven by the President's poll numbers.
It was driven by the uh the massive response that constituents um uh r sent in to their elected officials.
Uh it was driven by the uh media.
But I'll tell you that the the truth is that I don't think these guys in Congress needed to be driven by constituent email or phone calls, because my recollection is that their initial reaction was exactly that anyway.
Hey, we're just all over.
I can't believe Steel Schumer was out there and the uh the uh and the the actually the Democrats used it to get themselves on the so-called right side of national security, and then the Republicans, oh my God, we've seated our one issue.
We got a gun on the other side of the Democrats.
It just began they all started chasing the tails.
Without any knowledge of what the deal was.
All right, two two stories here.
I have a piece from the American thinker.
It's one of my uh favorite and most thoughtful blogs.
John B. Dwyer.
After the fact of the demise of the U.S. Did you say that I'm being called an elitist now?
I'm being called an elitist.
Oh, wonderful.
Well, at least it's not profane.
I'm an elitist because I'm in the ten percent that doesn't like what happened yesterday.
And ninety percent of the people have spoken, ninety percent of the people want what happened to happen, and and I think I'm smarter than ever I don't think I'm smarter than anybody.
I'm more informed on this.
If that makes me smarter, then I'll lay claim to it.
I'm not smarter than anybody else.
I'm just more informed.
The ninety percent of the people in Washington who were dealing with it.
At any rate.
After the fact of the demise of the U.S. terminals deal.
Yes, I said terminals, not ports.
Nobody was gonna be controlling these ports.
Let's take a look at an excerpt of the fact sheet that's been posted at the Homeland Security website for a while.
Of course, arrogant Bush-hating, manipulative re-election-obsessed congressmen and senators couldn't be bothered with these facts.
Coast Guard.
This is actually on the DHS website.
Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard routinely inspects and assesses the security of U.S. ports in accordance with the Maritime Transportation and Security Act and the Ports and Waterways Security Act.
Every regulated U.S. port facility is required to establish and implement a comprehensive security plan that outlines procedures for controlling access to the facility, verifying credentials of port workers, inspecting cargo for tampering, designating.
We forget about the story yesterday that we got all these uh truck drivers that drive in and out of the ports in New York and New Jersey.
They haven't even cleared security yet.
Terminal operator.
Whether a person or a corporation, the terminal operator is responsible for operating its particular terminal within the port.
A terminal operator is responsible for the area within the port that serves as a loading, unloading, or transfer point for the cargo.
This includes storage and repair facilities and management offices.
The cranes they use may be their own, or they may lease them from the port authority.
Wait, port authority?
What's the port authority?
Well, it happens to be next on the list here.
Port Authority is an entity of a local, state, or national government that owns, manages, and maintains the physical infrastructure of a port, a seaport, an airport, a bus terminal.
This includes wharves, docks, piers, transit sheds, loading equipment and warehouses.
And that is not what is owned by any foreign country or company.
Those are all owned by governments.
State, federal, you name it.
Ports often provide additional security for their own facility.
The role of the port authority is to facilitate and expand The movement of cargo through the port, provide facilities and services that are competitive, safe, and commercially viable.
Then it goes on to talk about all the different defense mechanisms and security and screening and inspection mechanisms that are uh uh involved here.
Then it lists what DP World will operate and at the following term, with the terminals within six U.S. ports currently operated by the United Kingdom Company P and O. Now you're going to go through all that.
Um Mr. Dwyer concludes, I've been working on some doggeral descriptive of the terminals deal fiasco, but uh can only come up with the last lines.
And if congressional brains were cargo, there'd be nothing to unload.
Now we go to the Washington Post.
And one of these stories that didn't appear during the uh uh argument over this during the debate, the headline overseas firms entrenched in ports.
Despite Dubai company's withdrawal, others are likely to stay put.
What's interesting in this story?
There is an important reason why terminals are usually managed by foreigners.
The shipping companies themselves are largely foreign.
And they have generally sought to control terminals so they can be certain of having the most reliable, efficient facilities possible for loading and unloading their vessels quickly to reduce costly time in port.
That arrangement has suited local port authorities.
They want to ensure that their ports will draw enough traffic to generate revenue and employment.
But keeping the foreign-owned companies in the ports may be essential for another reason.
The nation's need for financing to increase port capacity.
Foreign shipping companies eager to increase their business will presumably be willing to provide the funding.
It is unclear whether enough money can be obtained domestically.
It goes on to say other statistics that explain in black and white why all this has happened.
Why who owns what, why they own it, how often, and how frequently they expand.
It makes the point that these companies are just businesses.
They're just businesses.
They're not terrorist organizations.
Okay, back it to me.
Open line Friday, L. Rushball.
I want you people to kid this this argument that I'm an elitist and 90% of the American people uh, you know, they're the real smart ones, but I think every I'm smarter than everybody else.
Let me say what this is leading up to.
I will I will guarantee you that there are some members of Congress that know this thing was okay, but they didn't think they had the time and they didn't have the guts to try to properly inform the American people on this.
And one of the things about that, uh, and and now the Democrats, in a and in a in a story today that's in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Democrats admit that they had racist and xenophobic reaction, and it was Bush's fault, and that they actually played that up because they knew that the American people were having the same reaction, and they played it up because that would help them win politically on the deal.
So the Democrats have admitted now that you can be xenophobic and racist and even profile if it helps you politically.
Besides, it's all Bush's fault anyway, because he's been so exaggerated fighting terrorism, he's made all of us xenophobes and racists against Arabs and Muslims.
What's going to happen before this is all over with, we're gonna find out it was a good deal.
It was it was it was it made all kinds of sense, but the American people were just too stupid to understand it.
That's what will be said.
Well, we didn't have time to teach American.
America is too sophisticated.
American people uh couldn't understand it.
Same old liberal talking point.
People are to be viewed with contempt and condescension because they're too dumb to do what's right in life, so we, the anointed elite, we must lead their lives for them as best we can, blah, blah, blah.
And don't let me in with those elites.
I mean as you people know, I am your biggest defender.
I am the one who has the ultimate respect for your abilities and your intelligence, which is why I've spent three weeks on the ports deal, giving you all the details on it that I could learn.
Here's Bob in Tallahassee, Florida.
Welcome to the program.
Greetings, sir, from a former Cobra pilot.
Quick question that is easy for you.
Vince Flynn, you started me on him, besides him.
Who else do you enjoy reading?
And have you ever talked to him on the radio, or do you see the potential?
Uh oh, I've met uh metz a couple times out on the set of the Fox Thriller 24.
Vince, uh, in fact, I'll we've uh there's the pictures from that event as a picture of me in Vince on a website.
I'll have Coco put that picture up so you can see what Vince looks like.
Vince was out there.
It was about a year ago, and he was uh on a two-week consultancy with them as they were uh plotting this current season.
Umce uh lives in Minnesota, uh and I will be seeing him on the night of the twenty-ninth.
Uh at a at a lavish and uh just gonna be a big time dinner.
I bet it would be an interesting segment between the two of you on the radio.
Um well it it would except I don't do guests except when the president or vice president call and want to get on the program.
Understand.
Understand.
Yeah.
I haven't I don't think there is anybody else in his field.
Tom Clancy is, of course, brilliant and great.
And I don't know if he's working on a a new book right now or uh or not.
But there's another author out there that I book comes out, I get it, David Boldacci.
Oh, who doesn't camel's lair, camel's back, whatever.
They're they're all they're all excellent books, but they're they don't have uh, you know, they're not about international espionage and all that.
I haven't had I really haven't been reading too many novels lately.
Uh what with uh it's just I go through cycles.
I'll I'll read them voraciously and omnivorously and and then I'll not read any for six months or so.
Depends on you know the ebb and flow of the program here and how much work is uh required in prepping it.
But uh and Vince a young guy.
You you you'd um you'd and he looks like he could be uh Mitch Rapp.
The guy's a hunk.
He is really we'll put that picture up on the website and uh just keep checking it periodically.
Coco will get it up there, the webmaster, and uh you'll uh get a chance to see Vince and me together, and I think with Joel Cerno out on the set of 24th.
Stephen in uh in St. Louis, you're next.
Welcome to the program.
Uh Rush, Megadetto's from uh Arnold, Missouri, home of the city council that banned smoking and brought us the first red light camera and forced intersections in the state.
Well, thank you, sir.
Thank you for calling.
It's great to know you still chose to live there despite all that.
It's a great place to live.
Rush, I have a question.
I'm a former aircraft dispatcher, and I've always been curious when you're traveling in EIB 1.
Do you ever get special handling from uh air traffic controllers?
And I mean like good or bad from controllers that recognize the uh aircraft's registration.
Uh uh the registr well No, there's the the answer is is uh that there was one time um one time we were I forget where I was coming back from, I think coming back from uh California.
And we we uh we got into the uh Jackson Jacksonville Center uh control area, and the uh and and the and the guy there recognized the tail number uh or he didn't recognize it.
He he thought it was something else, and the pilot told him who it was.
Uh and I had to go up the cockpit and talk to the guy.
It was uh a lot of fun, but I'm not aware of any special treatment.
Uh I've never asked for it.
Uh if it's been given, I'm not aware of it.
Yeah, I gotta run here because of time.
Dispatch.
I don't have time to explain it, but I will.
But I gotta take a break.
Back after this, folks.
Okay, folks, let me let me send you off into the top of the hour wonderland here with this headline from the Los Angeles Times.
Poll shows more support for illegal immigrants.
Majority believe such residents have a favorable impact.
Ha ha ha.
▲
Export Selection