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April 3, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:29
April 3, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
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You know, folks, uh, our broadcast engineer here, Brian is getting married uh this weekend.
And he went out and he he he bought uh he bought his bride to be a new car.
And he's got it out here.
I'm looking at it on our security camera complex and uh complimenting him.
It was a very nice looking uh car.
And he said, I'll even let you drive it if you want to.
I said, No, it's I can tell by looking at it it's not expensive enough for me.
But I I appreciate the uh the offer.
Greetings, folks.
Uh, welcome back.
Here we are, the one and only EIB network, L. Rushbaugh at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The uh telephone number, if you would like to join us, 800 282-2882, and the email address, rush at EIBNet.com.
All right, from St. Louis.
A circuit judge in St. Louis has sentenced a woman who turned in voter registration cards in the name of dead local politicians to probation, community service, and relaxation training using transcendental meditation.
Michelle Robinson, 36, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of 13 violations of election law and of possession of crack cocaine and a crack pipe.
Robinson worked for a campaign called Operation Big Vote that uh aimed to boost the participation of black voters in the 2001 St. Louis mayoral election.
But some of the cards she turned in on February 7, 2001, were made out in the names of several dead former city aldermen, triggering straight and uh state and federal criminal investigations.
So uh so last Friday, Robinson admitted in court that she had filled out 13 fraudulent voter cards, including ones for now deceased Alderman Albert Red Villa and Nelene Joyce, whose daughter is the St. Louis Circuit attorney.
Judge David Mason of the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri sentenced her to four years of probation on both the drug and election charges, but she could face three years in jail if she violates her probation.
She must also get training in transcendental meditation and uh perform 180 hours of uh community service.
That's right.
I'm this this the judge is an advocate of transcendental meditation.
It is a uh uh, you know, you're the maharishi, uh my namesake.
I am the Maharashi.
The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, uh, which the judge believes in is an effective relaxation and stress management program.
The objective, uh by the way, excuse me for the uh sniffles out there.
The uh objective of uh of transcendental meditation, I give you a mantra.
Go to this big enough initiation ceremony, and they give you this mantra, and you're supposed to uh, you know, they tell you how to do it and all that, but the objective is cosmic consciousness.
And uh it's a 20-minute, twice-daily routine in uh in which the meditator silently focuses on a mantra to induce relaxation and dive into a state of pure consciousness.
Now, six other big vote workers uh who pleaded guilty in December 2004 to related violations did not receive the same spiritual sentence.
Five were sentenced to probation and one hundred hours of community uh service.
You know, I don't know if it's still there, but uh the Maharishi had a university, I think it was in Iowa.
Maharishi U. And uh we uh we were speculating one day, we don't know if they have any sports teams there, but we figured if oh, they do they have a bad they did have a basketball team, and we were speculating on what's the cheer uh when the other teams at the free throw line or whatever block that vibe blocked that vibe.
Anyway, it's strange sentence, but um I mean the things coming out of the court system today sometimes defy uh understanding.
I have some audio sound bites on the immigration uh story, and we have a first off a uh a montage here with the uh Bob Schiefer, who was on Face the Nation yesterday hosting the show.
Looks like he's gonna lose his gig uh on uh the CBS Evening News to Katie Kurick.
Uh big news that the announcement's gonna come this week.
There's a lot of buzz about this.
Schiefer apparently has brought the numbers up a little bit on the CBS evening news, but they're so far down that he hasn't gotten close to anybody else at ABC or uh NBC.
But we've put together a montage here.
Schiefer spent all of yesterday's Face the Nation totally obsessed about the idea that we need a border fence.
And here's the montage of various questions and comments he had with Senator Durbin on the show and James Sensenbrenner, Republican congressman from Wisconsin.
I've done a little calculating.
And 700 miles is from just down the street where we are, the Washington Monument.
If you go from there to the Sears Tower in Chicago, that comes out to 700 miles.
That's a pretty good sized fence.
What kind of a fence would it be?
I mean, this has got to be more than a couple of cowboys with some post holding and a pickup loaded with cedar post.
Would the fence be brick?
Would it be a cyclone fence?
What kind of a fence would it be?
Do you think a fence like that would work?
And how would you envision such a fence?
Let me go back to this fence.
The whole show was devoted, well, practically the whole show was devoted to the fence.
Now there were other items discussed, such as this with uh with uh Senator Durbin.
Uh Durbin talking about his constituents and uh and immigration.
Yesterday I went to Christo Ray High School here in Chicago, and there were 25 kids up on stage.
They're high school students, many of them the best in their class, who want to go to college.
Some of them are already in college.
One is pursuing a master's in neurobiology.
And our immigration law says to these young people who came here at an early age through no choice of their own, we don't want you in this country.
You're a criminal.
Under the House bill, we're going to call you not our future, but we're going to call you a felon.
You should leave immediately.
And the young man studying for a master's in neurobiology, I think he's an asset to the future of the United States.
I thought they were here doing the jobs Americans wouldn't do.
Now all of a sudden they're neurobiologists.
And a Republican bill in the House bill is going to call you a felon and they're here illegally rather than our future.
Our future?
Senator Turbin, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to s uh uh organize this argument.
They're either going to come here and be the best and brightest we've got, or they're gonna do jobs that Americans won't do.
But you're confusing everybody.
Um, I don't know.
Are they doing the jobs that uh the neurobiology before uh or or after the uh the lawns, you know, uh uh uh after they have to work the construction projects.
I've got I've got the breakdown here of the jobs that they're in, and I don't see any of them in neurobiology.
I know it's BS.
It's absolute, it's it's it's it's total BS.
Now, here is um here's a question here.
This is uh Schiefer shoots back.
Well, that th that's not the person who's coming across the Mexican border who's coming across the Mexican border.
These are these are people who have no education that are working at the lowest level.
Paul Krugman, liberal writer pro-immigration, says that even with all of that, he favors immigration.
What bothers him is that you're bringing a large non-voting workforce, which he says is sort of the way it is in places like Dubai.
So now we are going to have a permanent underclass like they have in Dubai.
But can you believe how these people are hitting poor old Dubai?
Dubai may as well be hell on earth.
It may be the absolute worst place on the planet.
Everybody can dump on Dubai.
We can't dump on Mexico, we can dump on Dubai.
So Krugman does have a piece.
He's all concerned about building a permanent underclass that doesn't vote, just like Dubai, and this is what Durbin says.
If you're asking me, I can tell you that I'm concerned about Krugman's article, and I've read it closely.
But the guest worker program that we're promoting is one that puts a cap on the number who can come in under this legal program.
Secondly, the people who hire them have to establish that there are no Americans who would fill this job, and finally, they have to be paid a prevailing wage.
So it isn't as if we're creating a working underclass.
What we're trying to do is to meet some real employment needs in this country.
Oh, that is just offensive as hell.
We are at full employment.
Employment's at four points, unemployment's at 4.7%.
The Democrats can't get off this silly notion that we got a sup line economy out there.
Now, what is it?
We had a soup line economy and nobody can get jobs?
Or do we have an economy that's growing so fast we need people to fill them, Senator?
Which these people are so all over the board, but it's pure pandering.
Let's go on now to Vice President Lindsey Graham on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.
He said, Senator Frist says that even if all 45 Democrats vote for your bill, that you're not going to be able to get the 15 Republicans to break a filibuster of the comprehensive package.
Do you think the Senate will pass an immigration bill?
And if so, what kind?
I think it would be political suicide for our party to filibuster a comprehensive solution to a real problem facing America.
It would be political suicide to ignore there's eleven million people here illegally undocumented who are trying to work in that value to our country.
If we adopt the approach of going to a Hispanic soldier in Iraq and a Hispanic Marine in Iraq and telling them the Republican Party's position is that we're going to make your grandparents felons and deport them, we will lose power as a party.
If we're going to charitable organizations, uh religious institutions who are providing assistance to abuse women and children and say if you help somebody who's undocumented, we're going to make you a felon.
We will lose our majority.
So I mean uh think what you want, but I want to thank Senator Graham for being honest.
There it is.
It's all about voters.
It's all about the party, it's all about getting votes, all about getting uh these future swing votes from the uh illegals that are here.
That's what's driving this.
One thing though, uh nobody is gonna go to a Hispanic soldier, Hispanic Marine and tell them the Republican Party's position is we're gonna make your grandparents felons and deport them.
Nobody is talking about deporting anybody, not seriously.
What we're talking about, what's being discussed is providing some disincentives in the legislation.
And there are no disincentives in the in the legislation whatsoever.
So, you know, you've heard me say it.
You've heard me say this is all about pandering, so we don't upset our majority so the Republicans can get these votes, but in the process, what's going to happen to conservative principles when you have to go out and appeal to people who have uh been brought up to have an entitlement mentality.
And you have a Democratic Party out there promoting the the same thing they always do.
Vote for us, we'll take care of you.
We'll protect you against the evil Republicans, we'll protect you against these people.
We're already calling it the new civil rights movement.
So what are we going to do?
Get into a battle here over who can who can provide the best welfare state for these uh for these immigrants?
I mean, what what does that do to conservative values once uh once that debate starts?
I gotta run.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
All right, it's back to the phones, and I uh I want to welcome Deborah Burlingame to the program.
Her brother Chuck Burlingame uh was the pilot of Flight 77.
She has some comments on the Flight 93 movie.
Deborah, thanks for calling.
It's uh it's nice to have you on a program.
Uh, thanks for having me, Russian.
Uh, my brother's name was Chick.
Um, he was the pilot on Flight 77.
And I I wanted to say about this this uh movie, uh United uh Flight 93.
Uh I won't be able to to see this.
It's it's going to be too brutal for me because um it's gonna be graphic um depiction of the cockpit crews being uh butchered.
Uh I just can't go there.
However, I hope that um people will go to this film.
I think it's gonna be very important because uh I think the country has become complacent.
I just heard a kid uh on the internet saying, you know, big deal, three thousand people, we lose more than that on the highways every year, and we don't have a war on highways.
Um the enemy is ruthless, brutal, determined, and motivated, and um I think the American people need to be reminded of that.
You know, that argument that you heard on the I by the way, I totally agree, and I'm glad you I I hope you keep saying this.
Uh I understand the difficulty you would have watching, but that argument that that uh you said kid on the internet, hey, we have more than this on the highway, why don't we have a war on a on a wheel or something?
Uh the the the real problem with that is I doubt that kid came up with that on his own.
There is a there's a there's a political movement in the country to try to uh sabotage every effort that we're making to defeat this particular enemy.
Uh and and it's it's that I think it what you heard on the internet is uh is symptomatic of it.
Complacency has settled in.
Rush and I'd also like to tell your listeners this.
Uh I wish that the um the public, I'm I'm against cameras in the courtroom, but I sure wish they were there when Massawi testified last week, and also when Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9-11, when his testimony was read into the record.
Uh Muhammad uh Khalichek Muhammad said that they had no idea that the damage of that attack would be as catastrophic as it was, but that the that they did not plan on the U.S. responding to the attacks as fiercely as they did.
And that caused the second way to be postponed.
I suspect that, you know, the the reporting of IEDs in Iraq notwithstanding, the military's response has left Al Qaeda reeling.
And um he even said that that the the prospects for a second attack were dismal, dismal.
And I I think that that's another reason why this movie is so important because here are Americans in in in the blink of an eye, banding together, they didn't know each other.
They took a vote and they brought the fight to the enemy.
And they and they stopped.
They stopped that plane from killing hundreds if not thousands of people in Washington.
And that is the model for us.
Aggressive Yeah it was it's it's heroic and inspirational and it ought to be seen for those reasons alone.
Yes.
Uh d this the these people should remember be remembered for generations.
For generations.
Their story I have to say, because uh my brother's plane was the third one that that went down, they didn't have enough information obviously to stop it.
But uh the story of ninety three uh I think kept me from losing my mind, frankly.
Because it was so inspirational.
It really was and that's why as hard as this film is I I hope a lot of people see it.
Personally I just can't go back into I can't see it the the the graphic depiction of the murder of the crews.
But I I I hope people go and I hope it is I understand that it's been shot uh very high production values, documentary style and um it should be I hope it shakes people up I do too because they need to be I let me ask you a question,
Deborah uh aside from the movie, I there's still when you when you uh you know just get up every day to inform yourself about what uh daily events in the country are politically and culturally as they relate to either Iraq or the war on terror and knowing full well what spawned all this does the uh does the debate the country's having in the the the seemingly large number of people who don't think it's worth doing what we're doing.
Does that disturb you at all?
How do you how do you deal with that on a daily basis?
It's frustrating um but you know uh I I think it's sort of typical Americans um with the exception of Pearl Harbor and then sixty years later nine eleven we we're we're used to being we're spoiled.
Uh uh we live uh in in in a world which is um th the rest of the world doesn't uh doesn't get which is uh affluence and prosperity uh comfort and um we'd rather be there.
So um we don't want to do the heavy lifting um that I think this war is I I I shouldn't say we.
Uh some do not want to do the heavy lifting that this war requires.
But make the mistake this is a war and so I feel very determined.
I mean we already lost my brother so um I I I feel like um doing whatever it takes um in the effort to to bring awareness.
But it's it's very frustrating Rush.
We're in a war.
We're absolutely in a war.
You know I it it it's it's frustrating to me too that we're talking with Deborah Burlingame uh by the way if you just joined us who's uh whose brother Chick uh was piloting flight seventy seven and died in the uh nine eleven attacks.
You know you look at what you described as a country of uh im imminent prosperity and uh imminent prosper and opportunity and and so forth and yet um you're you're absolutely right we have people in this country who if they want to put their head in the sand they can do it.
If they if they want to go on and do anything and and uh ignore the reality of where we are we still have despite uh the prosperity uh and affluence in this country we still have a significant number of people who will take the responsibility of defending the country at the time.
Pearl Harbor you mentioned that the country was unified uh back then that was that was a seminal moment in American history and we were I mean there there were pockets of opposition to response but I mean we were pretty much unified in everything.
We women going into the factories to work, we were rationing gasoline, everybody was oriented towards victory.
It's not the case today, but still we have enough people and I take this as uh as inspiration.
We stay and they're young.
Young people who are willing to step up and do what it takes.
They're volunteering to do it in case uh terms of the armed forces.
So there there's a there's a good side to this too, even though um uh it it does appear that some of us in the country are not interested and would rather keep our heads in the sand over it.
Well, let me tell you, I I raised my daughter who's twenty three now, but I in New York City, she lived her whole life in New York City.
Um Let me stop let me de Deborah, we've got a break coming up in fifteen seconds, and I know you can't finish in fifteen seconds.
I want to hear the story.
Can you hang on for just a couple minutes after the break?
Okay, good.
Do that.
We'll come back and and uh and get more of this because this is I'm glad she called.
I'm glad you called Deborah because this is something I think uh people need to hear.
And the controversy over the trailers of this movie Flight 93, I think will uh pretty much ensure a lot of people go see the movie.
It works almost every time it's tried.
We'll be back.
And we are back, uh the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and we welcome back Deborah Burlingame, again, uh who's whose brother Chick was the pilot of Flight 77 uh on 911.
You were going to tell us a story about your daughter.
Yeah, my daughter, she's 23 now.
Um, but uh when it came when she was in high school and and growing up in New York City, it came time for her to consider school.
All of her friends were gonna, you know, stick to the um Ivy League's East Coast, and um she decided to get out of New York and she ended up going to Indiana University.
I was really happy that she looked at the Midwest and and also schools in the South.
Um she thought that she was going to be surrounded by a bunch of hicks, and um but she thought that that would be I suppose local color or something.
But you know what?
She had an education that she wasn't anticipating.
She was exposed to these Midwest kids with uh a Midwest work uh work ethic.
Um she was away from the big city smart set and their definition of cool.
And um it's it's changed her view of the world.
Uh and I think that's one of the problems.
The you know, the media culture is centered in New York City.
They think they're the smartest, most sophisticated people in the world, and they and they speak for the entire country.
Um and uh they don't.
They absolutely don't.
The the the editorial page of the New York Times is clueless.
Absolutely clueless.
Totally clueless.
The editorial page and the front page is one and the same.
You know, they would need a visa uh for their reporter to send them into Indiana to find out what it may as well be a foreign country to them.
Right.
And and these kids um that you're talking about that are um you know, showing up for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world, um that's where they come from.
Um they come from Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.
Um they're being impugned, Deborah.
They're being impugned by the likes of the left.
Richard Belzer was on that waste of time Bill Mars show on on and and uh basically said, Look, they're hicks and they're idiots and they're dumb.
They don't even know why they're there.
The only reason they're there is because they've got no hope for a future in this country because they there's no jobs, and so they've been hoodwinked into thinking they have to join the army to have a future with education and a job.
I mean, even that's that's that's obviously not uh correct description, but it's interesting that that's the elitist attitude the left has toward the military.
Belzer, I think we're just publicizing it for all of those of the left to believe it.
But even let's for the state just hypothetically, let's stipulate that that were w that were true.
So why impugn them?
They're still volunteering to defend the country.
They're still volunteering to risk their lives to defend the co why it why impugn these people?
And that's something that I think uh I'm I'm glad your daughter saw this.
Yeah, I'm gonna do that.
I'm glad she got to experience it.
They impugn it, by the way, I'm convinced, because they don't understand military culture.
They're very hostile towards the military in general, and so they have to put it down.
And by the way, who you know, this isn't like the Hollywood of the forties, as you know.
Um none of them would think of serving.
Richard Belzer, by the way, um, picked up and moved his family to France.
I don't know if you're aware of that.
Um when he had that show um that was filmed in Bal Baltimore, he would have to fly in from France for filming.
I don't know if he still lives there, but he lived there for some time, uh raised his daughters there.
Did not know that.
Yeah.
That's a fact.
You can check it, but um that's a fact.
Um I you know, I just think that again, it's the the the military culture that the the the media is completely hostile to.
And they and they learned that hostility um right you know in college when you know with the the hostility towards RLTC on campuses, um and and so on and so forth.
I wish that Mr. Belzer and others like him could could get a field trip um to any one of um uh the the military installations that are training our troops uh because um they would make mincemeat of in there i think he wouldn't believe what he saw well he'd also be he'd be incredibly impressed I got a VIP tour uh at CENCOM down in Tampa um and a um uh uh a tutorial uh uh from some of the officers there, intelligence officers.
These calls are PhDs.
He'd think it's propaganda, Deborah he'd he'd think it was set up for his visit.
He'd be a I actually I think that he would be not only impressed but incredibly uh reassured at how forward thinking our military is I mean they're they're thinking ahead twenty years.
They're worried about what the population of Yemen is going to look like uh twenty years down the line.
I mean these these people are very very smart um and we're very lucky to have them Rush.
Tell me I mean I I'm I'm in your camp on this I just I think you know the the anti-military culture goes beyond a lack of understanding.
I think it's a I think they're fully informed incorrectly on what they think the uh military does.
They they are they're upset that the United States is the largest country the superpower in the world.
They blame the U.S. military as the focus of evil in the modern world we cause these problems.
You listen to Belzer and and uh and members of that of that gang and and you will eventually hear them say well you hear them say it now Bush is creating terrorists.
We're making terrorists we are making these people mad by just being Americans by just being who we are.
Then we send these uh military personnel all over the world a colonize a nation build and they they have a they have a uh a self-loathing guilt laden view of their own country and the military is an easy target for them to focus on because they think it does all the things that they would never do kill people,
break things uh uh and when you couple that with their elitism and they have all the answers and so forth you get an arrogant condescension that is what makes them see people from various parts of the country or military people the way they do.
Well and and in the end I I think that uh with some exceptions, uh Russia I don't think that they really care because they you know when you really care about something you follow through.
And you don't really see that on uh them doing that.
Uh if if you don't see them making any personal sacrifices whatsoever for the betterment of the country.
No, that's for everybody else to do.
Pardon?
That's for everybody else to do.
No they're supposed to define who the the sacrifice and then tell people what sacrifice to make.
Their big sacrifice is tax increases.
How can we how can we run a war without r raising taxes?
That's their idea of sacrifice but not on them of course uh on on everybody else.
Yeah that's true.
Well look I'm I uh do you happen to know when Flight 93 opens?
Oh I just April 28th it comes so it's this month.
That's correct.
Okay.
That's correct.
And and by the way I anticipate um because listen I've been sitting there um I've been exposed to a lot of nine eleven family groups for you know audio tapes and so on and so forth.
Also at the Massawi trial close close circuit uh they're gonna have a screening for families uh at at their premier they're gonna have families there and I anticipate I'm not kidding Rush I think people will be um I I don't want to say hysterical but I think they're gonna have people noisily weeping and um and ordinary audience members.
think this is going to be an emotional film and I don't think that means it's that that that's necessarily a negative thing but I I think people need to be prepared to see something very shocking well once once again let me ask you a question because as a member of the of the 9/11 families I mean you know that there is not unison of opinion there on what we're doing right now there there are the
And any group of people you're gonna have political uh and and cultural disagreements um what do you expect those who uh are let's say think differently uh from you on the what do you expect them to do when the movie comes out do you think they'll try to convince people not to see it will they suggest that this is uh not factually accurate uh uh what will they do to try to suppress this movie or to keep as many people from seeing as possible.
No, I don't know.
I wouldn't presume that they would want to suppress it.
You're talking about the peace at any cost, people?
Yeah, the people that showed up in 9-11 hearings and generally tried to just turn this into a political charade to blame Bush for everything.
Well, I would anticipate that their position would be that, look at what happened on 9-11, and now, because of Iraq, we have increased the terrorists a thousandfold.
In other words, Iraq was a recruiting poster for al-Qaeda.
that will be their position but um you know what you you people react on a gut level to nine eleven rush.
Um they do a gut check on this stuff, and I do not believe that people will come out of that film thinking we have to lay down for the terrorists.
I just don't believe that.
No, of course that's a inspired.
That's that's that's exactly right.
That's why it needs to be seen.
That's that's precisely why it needs to be seen.
Instead of things like Fahrenheit 911, the same bunch of people that are telling movie theaters on the upper west side of Manhattan, don't show me that too soon.
It's too soon, I can't wait.
They probably the same bunch that could not wait to go see 9-11 two and three times.
So and they and they don't like um things that inspire feelings of patriotism.
That makes them very nervous.
Amen.
Uh that makes them very, very nervous.
Um because people who feel patriotic do crazy things in the name of country and uh you're rational.
Uh but people are they react to this on a gut level, and they I don't think they'll buy any of that.
I think they will see these heroes.
And there's there's no I mean, that word gets bandied around a lot, Rush.
But these people are the very definition of heroic.
And when they see this, pure unadulterated heroism, they're gonna be inspired.
They're going to be inspired.
And at the very least, the people who are um glib on the subject of terrorism, maybe we'll get the smiles wiped off their faces for a little while.
And those there's another group, they will be reminded.
The people with their heads in their sand who want to pretend that it didn't happen so they don't have to deal with the possibility of it happening again.
Um this will be a reminder.
I think it's uh I think it's well timed, and I'm I'm glad you called to recommend it because you carry a lot of weight on this given your personal involvement, and I'm uh I'm happy you called.
All right, thanks, Rush.
Deborah Burlingame, uh again uh her brother Chick pilot of Flight 77 on 91.
A quick timeout, we'll be back and continue after this.
Thanks again to Deborah Burlingame.
Uh listening to the discussion of the movie United 93.
And she just uh she just called in.
We I went to the website here during the break and uh the website for the movie.
And out of for some reason when I read a c couple with the pictures, a picture of uh of an airplane flying toward the Statue of Liberty with both twin towers still standing and smoking.
It's an artist rendering.
Uh but it's just it's just five lines.
September 11th, 2001.
Four plans were hijacked.
Three of them reached their target.
This is the story of the fourth, United 93.
I got a little tingles now when you uh when you look at that.
When you uh when you read it.
So they're talking about movies.
Uh let me do this and get it out of the way.
Paul Verhoven, who uh directed the first basic instinct movie, uh is on the war path since Sharon Stone's sequel, Basic Instinct Two has tanked at the box office.
The the the weekend take was three point some odd million, three point two million dollars, with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars on Sunday.
Uh which meant it started slow and then tapered off.
Uh uh it's it's it's totally in a tank.
It is totally embarrassing.
So Hollywood has to come out and of course blame the country for the failure of this great work of art.
Now I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment.
I can only tell you what I've you know, read that has been written about it by critics and so forth, and and it it hasn't any of it been good.
But a lot of times critics, you know, hate a movie and it's skyrockets.
This one apparently didn't.
Anyway, Verhoven, he not only did basic instinct, but he um he did uh uh Showgirls.
Now just to give you some comparison, the first basic instinct movie did 353 million dollars.
Worldwide DVD, all that sort of stuff.
This one is gonna be, if they're gonna have any chance, you're gonna have to sell it on DVD and and uh I don't know what its international take is gonna be, but it's embarrassment here in this country.
He also did Sho Girls, which is now s regarded as something of a of a camp Classic, but he attributes the demise of the genre of erotic movies to the current American political climate.
He said, anything that's erotic has been banned in the United States.
Look at the people at the top of the government.
We're living under a government that's constantly hammering out Christian values.
And Christianity and sex have never been good friends.
This guy does not know the Christians I know.
Scribe uh well, he doesn't.
Man, oh man, there's so much ignorance.
But anyway, that's not surprising.
Nicholas Meyer, a uh writer who was an uncredited writer on uh fatal attraction, agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.
We're in a big puritanical mode, he says, now it's like the McCarthy era, except it's uh it's not are you a communist, but instead it's have you ever put sex in a movie?
For writers like Meyer, whose credits include the human stain, Summersby, and the three Star Trek films, the erotic genre has become a tough sell for studios, increasingly leery of adult themed material.
Despite receiving glowing coverage, he and co-writer Ron Roos have found no takers for their sexy screenplay spoils.
Because every studio that read it said it's gonna get made.
They just don't want to be the ones to uh to make it.
Uh as writers find studios less resp uh receptive to the uh genre, fewer are attempting to craft the next body heat or sea of love.
All right, now correct me if I'm wrong.
Showgirls was a big bomb.
You know, I know that was but didn't showgirls come out when Bill Clinton was president?
Didn't Showgirls come out in the check the year?
But I know Showgirls didn't come out when Bush was president.
Showgirls came out when Bill Clinton was having fun with blue dresses and cigars in the study in the White House.
And you can hardly say that we lived in a puritanical period then.
It was uh it was quite the opposite.
But maybe could it just be?
Could it just be I I d I knew I was right.
I knew Mr. Snurley confirming that Showgirls came out uh or is it Brian that said I'm right.
Right, but 1995 hubba knew it exactly 11 years ago.
Showgirls right now, middle of the era of free love and do whatever you want, whenever, and then when you get caught, blame the people for being Puritans.
But nevertheless, could it could it be?
I mean, Sharon Stone's a little older now than she was when the first one came.
Can we also not remind you?
Sharon Stone's been running around the world saying some of the stupidest things.
She went to the Middle East, she went to Jerusalem.
She said, I can feel it.
I can feel it.
We're just a breath away from peace.
You know, and and people say, What why is this news?
Why why is my news consumption forced to deal with this?
Sharon Stone says that she also said the other day last week or something on the verge of the premiere the week before the movie that she doesn't think Hillary Clinton's time is right because she's too sexually powerful.
That Hillary needs to wait for her sexual period, whatever however she put it, her sexuality to have played out and too sexy.
She got too much sexual power to be president.
A country is uh offended by this, uh uh women.
Well, now I I don't I don't know who turned her loose, but that's not a way to go out and promote some sort of uh erotic genre of a movie uh when you are well-known sex siren, Sharon Stones.
You can't you can't divorce her from I sometimes I can't help it.
But I read what these people say, and I want to call them.
I said, Do you want to you want to make this movie success?
Do you want to make movies?
You want this genre to be, I can tell you how to do it.
But you have to stop having this disdain and this arrogant condescension for the vast majority of people that buy movie tickets here.
I mean, there's a way to do this w without running around offending the box office.
You people have been offending the box office, the average box office attendee for I don't know how many years, and you didn't help yourselves in the way you'd all jumped on passion of the Christ and acting afraid of that.
I mean, these people they they they they think they live in a vacuum that their words uh uh that they say are not going to offend people.
If they do, it's the it's it's like what's his face, Clooney said, We're happy to be.
What do you say?
Outcasting to say outcast.
We're happy to be out of touch.
Yeah, you are out of touch, but there's nothing in a business that would recommend you being out of touch.
It's silly to be happy to be out of touch when you're in a business.
And I'll tell you another thing, folks, these young male moviegoers are not going to think that a 48-year-old woman who could be their mother getting naked in a movie is any big deal.
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