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May 5, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:36
May 5, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 Podcast.
Yeah, here we are, folks.
The Fastest Weekend Media has brought us to the weekend.
The Russian ball program ready to go.
It's Friday, so let's hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open live Friday.
And here's the telephone number you want to line up and be heard.
800-282-2882.
Email address rush at EIB net.com.
I'll tell you what, if I'm Cynthia McKinney.
Ever since last night, yesterday afternoon, I gotta be I I gotta be wondering what's going on in Washington.
Yes, I'm talking about the uh the circumstance involving uh involving Patrick Kennedy.
The whole issue here uh is I mean the the the primary issue here is uh is cover up.
Apparently one police officer wanted to test uh Congressman Kennedy.
He was overruled and went public through the union.
Um and if he's telling the truth, that means that higher ups have covered up whatever went on.
When was this this happened uh Wednesday night, Thursday morning at 245, right?
Early Thursday morning at 245.
Now uh what it's it's it's troubling here that there was no DUI test.
I I'm not gonna get into criticizing Congressman Kennedy for he's obviously got some problems, and I don't think his family's helping out uh much with with the real problems that he's got.
We can go through the list of them uh assaulting this worker at the airport out in LA and uh car accident two weeks ago and uh other run-ins uh and the this this kind of behavior is is certainly a signal, and it's not being it's not being dealt with uh uh by him or his family, apparently.
They're into this cover-up now.
And the latest on the uh on the story here, ladies and gentlemen, is that he is saying that it was a combination of pills.
He was he was basically sleep driving.
Uh he was taking ambient and a and a and a piece of uh uh kind of medication for gastroenteritis, and uh it caused him to be disoriented.
He he woke up uh and and got in his car thinking he had missed a vote, had to go to Congress to vote.
Now the reason for saying that, by the way, is that uh no member of Congress or the Senate can be stopped on the way to make a vote.
On the way that it can't be charged, but anything can't be stopped.
Uh but of course Congress had had uh uh had adjourned three hours prior to this.
So the the story is that that um uh sometime around 245 a.m. he said I drove the few blocks to the Capitol complex believing I needed to vote.
Apparently I was disoriented from the uh medication.
Uh questions arose surrounding the recommended police reports that Kennedy was staggering and appeared intoxicated after nearly hitting a Capitol Police cruiser and then striking the uh the barrier.
The incident became public when the union representing Capitol Police alleged in a publicity released letter or publicly released letter that superior officers prevented rank and file cops from properly investigating the crash.
And dutifully, CNN, upon hearing that Congressman Kennedy uh may have taken Ambien and uh that it disoriented him, and of course he he I don't know, took Ambient and woke up.
What is he he was sleepwalking?
They say, and CNN did this big piece, long piece with their doctor correspondent about how, oh yes, this is entirely possible.
Um people to take ambient all the time and they eat and don't know that they're eating, and they wake up with food all over the bed.
Or uh people take ambient and then they go walking around the neighborhood and they ran into a tree or something, and I wake up.
Don't know how they got there.
Oh, yes, people take ambient and get up in the middle of the night and go driving, and then and then get uh hit a hit something and they get out of the car, they start staggering.
It was it was it was amazing to watch literally carrying the water for the whole notion that this is related to taking ambient.
So that the the defense now, I guess, is sleepwalking.
So here's what would have to have happened.
Congressman Kennedy would have had to put on a jack a jacket and a tie.
He would have had to put on his shoes, he would have had to found find his keys, get in a car, Drive to the Capitol all in his sleep.
If this if this defense is what we're being led to believe happened.
I wonder if he's ever done this before.
But the point is, regardless of all of this, he should have been tested for alcohol use regardless, particularly when the uh the police say they smelled alcohol.
He was exhibiting uh strange behavior, his slurred speech, slightly slurred speech, and he was he was weaving and unable to walk uh steadily.
Uh so it's it's I don't know, there's a lot of things here.
And that's why I bring up Cynthia McKinney, ladies and gentlemen, because she's under grand jury investigation for allegedly just hitting a Capitol Hill police officer in the Capitol, uh and and she's she's getting no special or beneficial treatment whatsoever.
They're trying to hang Cynthia McKinney, and of course she's black, and Congressman Kennedy isn't.
He's white, and of course, the the McKinney name in Washington doesn't carry the weight that the Kennedy name in Washington carries.
Uh she faces, as Thomas Lifson, the American thinker, uh, has some interesting uh facts today.
Uh she faces potential legal jeopardy, and now uh a rich uh white Congressman walks away without so much as a breathalyzer test from circumstances that would ordinarily demand uh an investigation.
At least one cop reportedly says he smelled alcohol.
Now, there are reports that a complaint's been filed with a union over the supervisors coming in and taking over this whole case.
Supposedly the Capitol police uh have a bit of a generation gap.
This I didn't know.
But apparently there's a there's a bit of a generation gap between the older supervisory ranks, accustomed to treating Congress like royalty, and new recruits that uh they have joined the Capitol Hill police force since 9-11.
Many of these guys are ex-military.
They see their job as protecting the Capitol from serious terror threats, and who see uh the rules applying to all.
Now, as to as to Congressman Kennedy himself, there's a lot of troubling episodes here, starting with his uh treatment in 86 for cocaine use.
A charter company accused him of causing $28,000 in damage to a rented yacht in 2000.
That same year he acknowledged that he was on a lot of different medications for, among other things, depression.
He was accused of shoving an airport security guard at LAX when she tried to make him check his bag.
Uh and and uh he was in a traffic accident last month in his home district in Rhode Island, uh, according to uh uh Howie Carr, who reported that the mishap occurred as Kennedy was hurrying into the parking lot of a pharmacy in uh in Portsmouth, uh, Rhode Island.
Now, Congresswoman McKenney, uh, I haven't heard from her yet today.
We haven't heard from her yet.
I mean, you know she got to be watching all this, and and and and shh they must have her tied down somewhere, folks, uh to keep her from a microphone to keep her from a television.
I'm you know, honestly.
The look at the difference in standards of treatment here.
Look at the difference in in uh in in how uh various circumstances are being dealt with.
Uh the problem with Cynthia McKinney here is well her problem is she could come out and denounce favoritism, of course, but the problem is she's asking for some uh by asking the incident that she's involved with to be forgotten.
Uh so I guess I guess she, you know what she should do?
She should come up and she should demand equal treatment to the same thing Patrick Kennedy got, meaning equal immunity from the law in Washington, D.C. involving a Capitol Hill police own driving your car.
Because that's what um that's what her recourse is.
Now, as to his problems, I have to I I I I really do, with all of with with all of these problems and all of these danger signals, uh, you have to wonder where is his dad?
I know that Patrick Kennedy is a is an adult, but it's clear that Patrick Kennedy needs some help.
He's not a kid anymore, really.
He he is uh he I can tell you folks, he needs some help.
And the two real issues in this in this story are just that the cover-up that took place or is taking place, and uh uh and that his dad seems oblivious.
The family seems oblivious.
If if his dad had spent half the time taking care of his son and dealing with his son's problems, uh that he uses attacking Bush, it might have made a difference.
But his dad may be a complete mess, too.
Who knows?
This is just a sad, sad circumstance.
This many incidents continue to happen.
And apparently there is no effort, I don't know of any serious efforts to uh deal with the uh with the problem.
Now the Boston uh, what is this Boston Herald?
So far I have not seen the drive-by media pick this up anywhere.
U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed no alcohol before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office.
But a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole, the Hawk and a Dove, told the Boston Herald that she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash.
He was drinking a little bit, said the woman who works at the Hawk and Dove would not give her name.
Leaving his office late last night, Kennedy uh refused to say whether he'd been to the Hawk and Dove the night before.
Earlier in the evening, he had issued a statement through his office blaming the accident and the strange behavior surrounding it on prescription drugs.
Uh taking ambion and phenygen uh for gastroenteritis.
Uh the first statement from from uh ABC had a blurb last night about 9.30, and they said that uh what was the it was taking medication for depression.
Uh now ambien's not for that.
I well, I don't think it is.
Sleep sleep medication and gastroenteritis Fennergan, I don't know what that's got to do with uh whatever.
I I'm just uh uh I wonder if they're gonna be other witnesses at the Hawk and Dove who come forward or if the uh Kennedy spin machine is going to get to them before the uh before the cops do.
Uh but aside from that, this is a this is a police matter and it's a cover-up, and it's it's it's also a uh a personal tragedy story because this is this this is disaster waiting to happen for a human being, Patrick Kennedy, uh at all these all these efforts to cover this up and and say it didn't happen and all this is not helping him, uh, is the bottom line.
May help the Democratic Party, and it may help political fortunes of others on the on the Democratic side, but it's not helping him.
And you wonder how many people care about that.
Back after this, stay with us.
Open line Friday, the Rush Limbaugh program in the EIB network.
And uh let me explain Open Line Friday if you're one of the uh uh new people tuning in and happens daily, a large tune-in factor.
By the way, look at the uh Dow Jones Industrial Average.
It's over uh over eleven five at the top in six years on its way to its record of uh eleven thousand seven hundred uh and some change.
Economic news continues to be good.
Of course, Dryby Media loves the fact that uh the new job rate, new jobs created, were less than expected, yet it was still a decent number of new jobs.
Here's how open line Friday works.
Monday through Thursday, this program's devoted exclusively to what I care about what I'm interested in.
But on Friday, when we go to the phones, it's your show, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
Meaning you can bring up whatever you want to bring up and you ask question or comment, does not have to be related to what we've been discussing prior to taking your call, nor does it have to be something that I particularly care about.
I want to play some of the sound bites that have occurred from last night on to today about the Patrick Kennedy circumstance.
Here is the president of the D.C. fraternal order of police, Lou Cannon, uh, last night at a press conference.
The officers indicated that there was an odor of alcohol about Mr. Kennedy, and that based on their experience and their observations that he felt he was intoxicated.
Just because you're a congressman or anything doesn't mean at three o'clock in the morning that you get afforded special privileges.
Last night on Anderson Cooper's 360, he interviewed Lou Cannon uh via phone.
He said you uh you had said, quoted as saying earlier, officers on the scene said the Congressman appeared intoxicated.
Would the Congressman's statement he had taken ambien and another drug?
Would that possibly result in him appearing intoxicated, even though alcohol he says was not involved?
Just based on the statement that was released, you know, medication can sometimes give the appearance of the person that's intoxicated, which would be all the more reason why you would want to do a breathalyzer on the scene to make that determination.
So the decision not to take a breathalyzer at that time certainly raises issues, and if you're not intoxicated, why wouldn't you want it?
And that is exactly the point.
We've got this, we've got a story here with two different versions.
Plus, we've got a waitress at the Hawk and Dove who says that she saw him consuming adult beverages that night, earlier that night.
Now we've got a dispute over was it uh drugs that cause the appearance of intoxication, or was it intoxication?
A breathalyzer would have solved the problem.
There wasn't any breathalyzer.
That's why the primary focus of this to me is the cover-up.
There is a cover-up, and you know, as I I keep harking back to uh hearkening back to Cynthia McKinney, but uh I'm almost tempted to get in on a legal defense fund for her, because there's clearly there's a double standard of treatment going on depending on who you are in that town, uh, even if you are a member of Congress.
Uh last night, Anderson Cooper again asks Lou Cannon of the Fraternity uh fraternal order of police is it standard operating procedure to take a breathalyzer of anyone in an accident like this?
Anytime there's an accident and there's uh suspected you're there would normally be field sobriety tests, and you could either do a roadside breath test or take somebody in and do uh a breathalyzer test on them to determine the level of content that's there, which you would need for later prosecution.
You don't always have to have that, but it is certainly helpful to have that.
Well, the opportunity isn't is gone forever now, the uh because obviously the higher ups interceded.
And don't forget Thomas Lifton, the American Spectator says you get two different groups of people in the Capitol Hill Police Force.
You've got the supervisory people and new recruits after 9-11 who uh uh ex-military people take it very seriously.
They're out there to protect the Capitol against terrorism.
He had a car almost barreling into a police cruiser and then through some security barricades.
Uh and the and the story now is, well, yeah, I was sleep what sleep driving.
And of course, CNN has literally been carrying the water.
They have already produced a report by their medical reporter saying, yeah, this is entirely possible.
And they went out and found three or four human examples of people have been gorging themselves on cake while asleep on ambient, uh, driving under the uh influence of ambient while asleep and so forth.
I mean, it's believe me, folks, this is not helping the human being Patrick Kennedy.
And it it it's this is if if they try to sweep this under the rug, he's only going to face his day of reckoning in a much worse circumstance almost guaranteed down the road.
Good morning, America today.
Charlie Gibson talking with Stephanopoulos says, I'm not sure people realize there's actually a separate police force on Capitol Hill, separate and apart from the Washington, D.C. cops.
And this happened on Capitol Hill.
When things happen with Congressman on Capitol Hill, do they normally get favorable treatment?
Because I don't think anybody would argue not getting a field sobriety test, he got favorable treatment.
I think that's exactly right, Charlie.
And I think in the past there have been lots of uh examples where members of Congress are treated well, and especially on Capitol Hill.
This is their own police force.
What's going on here now, though, is something of a power struggle inside the Capitol Hill police.
This is the second incident now in a month.
The other was with Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, where the rank and file police officers believe that their superiors came in and prevented them from doing their job, and that's what's playing out here.
And again, to remind you, Thomas Lifson and the American thinker today says that the Capitol Hill police have a bit of a generation gap between the older supervisory ranks, accustomed to treating Congress like royalty and the post-9-11 recruits, many of them ex-military, who see their job as protecting the Capitol from serious terror threats, and uh who see the rules applying to uh to all.
Stephanopoulos is then asked by Charlie Gibson, does this have uh widespread implications uh or or is it just a personal story for Paton?
I get this.
They're asking about the political results of the as far as the Democrats are concerned.
I think if his story holds up, it's mostly a personal story, but it will give the Republicans another talking point this year at a time when they're on the defensive.
They'll say Democrats are on the defensive as well.
Why do you mean give the Republicans another talk?
The Democrats have started this whole culture of corruption business, and it's fallen apart on them, George.
I mean, wait till you hear the news about Congress William Congressman William Jefferson.
He's his buddies in New Orleans are now abandoning him.
It looks like they're saying he's going to be indicted next week.
This whole culture of corruption's been abandoned.
If the Republicans were smart, they'd start talking about a culture of treason.
And they'd get their acting gear when it comes to illegal immigration and stop pussyfooting around on that and ceding that to the Democrats.
But let me let me tell you something, George.
And all the rest of you Democrats out there who are worried about the impact of this on your party and the possible elections, and I know you are.
I know you're at, oh my gosh, this is what Patrick Kennedy is this.
Oh let me tell you something.
That ought to be the last thing on your mind.
I know that it won't be, but you've got a human being here who is exhibiting some of the biggest red flag warning signs and has been since nineteen eighty-six, and you are going to put his health and perhaps his life and his future.
Uh and you're going to subordinate that to however you can spin this so as to not hurt the Democratic Party and its electoral uh fortunes in the future.
And I guarantee you your priorities are 180 degrees out of whack.
You have a human being, a man here, and in all of this, we're not having anybody express any concern for him as a person and what these problems obviously indicate.
I'm not surprised.
We'll be back in a second.
A man, a legend, a way of life.
I'm in the process of checking this out, but I just got an email from somebody that's uh uh involved in uh in reporting news in a credible way said that reporters now have uh Patrick Kennedy's bar tab from the hawk and dove on uh Wednesday night.
Now I'm still trying to track this down, and I'm I'm telling you this is somebody that I trust that's totally sent me the note, and we will uh If if it's true, you it won't be long before uh you're hearing about it in a number of places.
Alice in Fenton, Missouri.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thanks.
Rush, I can't believe that you are coddling this Patrick Kennedy the way you are, this poor guy who needs his father and everybody else to come in and help him.
He's a grown man.
And he's had plenty of money, he has plenty of money to take care of his problems long ago before any of this crazy stuff started happening.
Why are you excusing him like this?
I'm not.
I'm not excusing I am not excusing him at all.
Right now I've look at now, Alice.
I'm glad you called.
Because if if I was unclear, I'm happy for the opportunity to say this again.
There is a cover-up going on here.
He is being given preferential treatment over somebody like Pat uh Cynthia McKinney or over anybody else.
He's all it but that's a police problem.
I don't know what he did to engineer it.
I don't we don't know if his dad was involved in it.
All we know is that when supervisors at the Capitol Hill Police were told about this, they took over the case and they sent the uh the line cops who were out there home, and they had somebody drive the kid home or the young man home, or Patrick Kennedy's not a kid anymore.
Uh there's a huge cover-up going on about this, and it is it's not right.
Well, I'll tell you, it's it's not because of race.
It doesn't have anything to do with the difference between him and Cynthia McKinney.
It's about money.
Well, that's what the left would say.
I'm just simply trying to relate here.
Maybe it is about money.
I don't know, but if it's about the Kennedy name versus the McKinney name, I covered all of that.
Now what did I think?
I know.
I had to say something, Alice, that's that that that uh that caused you to uh m must have hit your button at it.
What was it I said that's got you upset?
Because nothing I said is uh is inaccurate.
Well, because uh in spite of the fact that you're saying that he must have there must have been something done wrong and there's a cover up going on.
You're sympathetic to him.
You're sympathetic because poor guy needs help.
He's a human being crying out for help.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say he's crying out for help.
I said there are a lot of warning flags here, and his p family apparently doesn't care.
The Democratic Party is more interested in making sure this doesn't hurt their electoral chances than getting a human being straightened out.
Yeah, he has to want to help himself.
There's no doubt, but sometimes you don't you don't have that luxury.
Well, you know what?
Whatever charge comes out against him, it will be watered down, and I'm referring specifically to uh I'm relating this specifically to the watered down charges that you had to face with your problem, which you let get out of hand before you did something about it when you had the money to take care of.
Wait a second.
You're gonna compare me to Patrick Kennedy circumstance?
In a way.
How so?
Because you were brought up on charge.
Tell me where they're tell me where they're similar.
I had a problem, I admitted it.
I went and dealt with it.
I have been clean uh from the painkillers uh for almost two years and eight months.
I went to public there was wait a second now, there's no cover up.
I sought and received help.
I didn't endanger anybody Else than this case, there's a cover up, there's no breathalyzer.
Um I fought this for two and a half years and they wanted to charge me with much more than they did.
Well, why didn't they?
Well, you'd have to ask them.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Well, if you think I got preferential treatment, you are out of your mind.
Well, what isn't that housekeeping?
Hang on a minute, Alan.
I spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars dealing with lawyers.
I fought this at every stage.
Would you just tell me and your audience what happened to the housekeeper in the parking lot?
Why was that never you know Well, this is something that you're talking about people who sold a story to a tabloid publication.
Are you saying it there was no connection by anything?
I am not going to dignify the details in that stupid story.
The only thing I would ask you to consider is this, Alice.
If you want to believe all that was true, how come none of it was pursued?
I'm talking about money.
That's the whole point.
Are you saying you did not meet this housekeeper in the parking lot?
I'm not commenting on that.
I'm not gonna dignify it by doing so.
That's how you're getting around it.
No, I'm not getting around anything.
I'm answering your question.
I'm not gonna dignify such tripe.
If you want to consider the national inquirer, something that's legitimate, you feel free, go right ahead.
I just ask you why was none of that stuff pursued, why was it doctor shopping?
But anyway, uh it's interesting here.
Um you're on all sides of this.
I'm trying to show a little compassion for Patrick Kennedy, human being, not Democrat in this case.
But I actually, you know, I feel sorry for this guy, given my own experiences, given things I've seen other people go through, and yet you still want to harp on me about how I got special treatment.
This is it it's a it's an amazing thing to watch certain human beings process information and come up with the conclusions that uh that they come to.
You're in your case, uh you've you've got some bitterness or anger that's driving you to hear things that I'm not saying and to make conclusions and draw conclusions that simply are not there.
But I'm glad you called.
I appreciate the opportunity to once again try to explain this uh to people uh who don't have the ability to understand it the first time they hear it.
Glenn in uh West Calwell, New Jersey, welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, Ross.
Let's take what uh Representative Kennedy said.
Let's just take hypothetically that it's true, although it's probably not, but let's just take it's it's true.
Well, he has admitted to driving while impaired.
The crime is driving while impaired.
He has admitted that he was under the influence of a drug and he dr and uh obviously the belief found him and he was driving.
Therefore, what's what's the issue?
He has he has a he has uh committed a crime, period.
Well, he had the presence of mind to say he was uh driving to a vote, uh in which case he can't be stopped or charged, except the the house had adjourned three hours earlier.
Uh well you look at there was a I mean that's the point.
This this is a cover-up.
And that that's pure and simple.
This doesn't happen for everybody, and it didn't happen for me.
Alice and no one should be arrested in Pardon?
No one should be arrested in November when we go to vote to the polls and elect our uh congressman, then I guess I don't know.
It's it's it's obvious uh that there's they're conflicting stories here, and the mechanism by which we would all have the truth, whether there was a breathalyzer uh or a breathalyzer test is not now going to happen because it's um it's too late.
So uh I guess about it's about it.
I don't know what more they're um they're they're there is this well uh Nathan in Virginia Beach.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Nice to have you.
Hello, Rush.
Hi, uh uh uh my name is Nathan, I'm from Virginia Beach.
I'm a former radio producer and uh honor to talk to you.
Thank you, sir very much.
Great to have you on the program.
Uh I I just want to tell you though that you know, as uh uh at some times you you do come across a bit egotistical, but being a radio producer, a former one, I I've dealt with a lot of people in radio, and and everybody everybody behind the mic has a bit of an ego.
But in a last that I deserve mine, see that's the difference.
And most of the time.
I mean, they don't call you the godfather for nothing.
Um but you uh in the last few weeks, especially when I heard the leukemia uh uh uh song that you had the other day.
I heard so much true compassion that seems to come right from your heart.
And when you say listen to every syllable that you that you utter, I try to.
And I could tell that what you have coming out sometimes is ego, but sometimes it's right in the heart.
Now what you just mentioned about Patrick Kennedy, even though he's a Kennedy, and even though uh you know we all know that as family and that you're at odds with Democrats, you're showing true compassion for the man's uh well-being.
And and you shouldn't be you shouldn't be admonished for it.
You should be commended for it.
I appreciate that.
I'm still sitting here, I'm smiling.
How in the world of all things that previous caller could have heard, one rich guy standing up for another rich guy to get away with it when I didn't get away with anything.
I didn't I didn't I uh I just tried to protect my privacy and uh protect my constitutional right.
If you if you're gonna say I did something, you better prove it.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make it easy for you to prove it.
I'm not gonna deny my constitutional rights so you can prove something, especially when it didn't happen.
I could tell I could tell you as a as a member of a uh twelve-step program myself, uh that I can relate to what you probably have gone through, and uh I also know not to believe half the BS that's published out there.
So uh you know, Jud, just uh if people listen to you and listen to the way you present yourself, uh and they're and they're they're fans of yours.
They could think it here through the malarkey.
They could hear when you're presenting your own.
I know Nathan, I really appreciate this.
I really do.
My audience, they they I mean, all the things you've said about my ego, and sometimes I'm trying to be funny.
People that listen to this program regularly get it, they understand what's going on.
So people that don't listen to this program who are the source of all this uh uh hatred for it and for me and the criticism, and the left who does listen to it who simply can't defeat the ideas here, so they try to, as they do with every conservative uh uh discredit and uh damage the credibility of uh conservative people who are uh public spokespeople and uh leaders of a movement and so forth.
I understand all that.
This is uh uh it's it's it's it's one of the things that constantly amazes me.
There's we're on the air fifteen hours a week, we're on over six hundred radio stations.
What happens here is not a secret.
You don't need a password uh to listen to this program.
Anyone can turn it on and get it.
Those that don't don't want to.
Let me let me let me say one thing here, folks, about about the Patrick Kennedy business and uh my uh attention being paid to how it appears uh there's there's no concern really for him as a human being or as a person uh versus uh whatever uh fallout there might be to the Democratic Party or or this, that, and the other thing.
Aside from the cover-up aspects, so that's a police issue.
Let me let me just tell you this.
Um as you know, I I went to a a rehabilitation, call it clinic center, whatever, for five weeks, uh starting in October of 2003 through uh uh mid-November of 2003.
And the reason that I am uh focusing on the human aspects of Patrick Kennedy is because those five weeks were the most worthwhile and the most meaningful five weeks, straight solid five weeks of my life in terms of understanding myself and who I am,
and I don't have time to go into all the details of it now, but I'm just telling you it's something I wish I could have done long before I discovered uh pain pills.
I'd never heard of Percocet or any of that stuff until the mid-night.
I never even heard of it.
But despite that, if I had not had an addiction, these five weeks would have been the most valuable that I've ever spent.
And when I see people in uh in circumstances such as Patrick Kennedy's, or and uh there's a number of them out there more than you know with any kind of addiction spiraling down.
There are ways to fix it, and there are ways to salvage life and turn all of the experiences that lead to this into some of the most important uh inspirational positive things that can happen to a human being.
They happened to me.
Now I haven't been able to talk about this uh while this investigation's been ongoing because uh of the of the possibility anything I might have said would have incriminated myself and there was a battle here over privacy and so forth.
But now that the the case is essentially over, I have a little freedom here that I haven't had for the last two years and seven or eight months to be able to provide some assistance and help with people because I this was uh this was this is to me it was as as worthwhile as the first and second grades combined.
Uh as I even if there were no addiction involved.
Uh I'm a huge believer in it.
Now not everybody that comes out of these um rehabilitation clinics succeeds, or relapse rate is really, really high.
They don't even know what it is.
The success rate is well under fifty percent, as you know by uh public figures who who relapse and have the same problem.
But for me, it worked to because I sunk myself into it.
It was almost almost sunk myself into this as much as when I uh sixteen and I had to go to an electronic school for six weeks to get a broadcast license in order to get my first radio job.
He had to have a first class radio telephone.
It had nothing to do with broadcasting, it had to do with engineering for a bunch of rias I don't want to go into here.
But you had to have one.
Uh and I want it I wanted out of that school so bad so fast because I wanted that license.
I got out of there in four weeks.
I eighteen hours a day in class and study, and I sunk myself into this too after about three days when it finally hit me uh the value involved.
And and I that's why I know that that this kind of destructive behavior he's engaged in can be stopped.
He may not think he has a problem yet, but it's obvious he does, and there are people around him who are trying to cover up the problem so as to uh cause no harm to themselves.
And that's only going to perpetuate this, and it's only gonna make it worse for him.
Back in just a second.
And two uh uh I guess uh home territory for the Kennedys, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Uh Bill, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program on open line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Megadles from the land of Kennedy.
Thank you.
Uh listen, I I want to echo the uh sentiments of your last caller about your compassion, and I think it's genuine.
I only wish that Patrick Kennedy would show half the compassion that you're showing him toward his mother.
Uh that poor woman, she dealt with all kinds of scandals, uh a philandering husband, and uh her thanks for it was they tried to have her committed uh a couple of years ago.
They had they I didn't they tried to have her committed, was that just a matter of aware they were trying to I look I don't know I don't I only know surface things about Joan Kennedy.
Did they ever try to help her and it didn't work?
Did they finally give up after trying, or did they never try?
What's Well, they had a big battle with her house.
They were fighting over the over the uh estate in uh in uh kind of I mean in uh uh no I was for it.
And uh they they tried that they did have a committed, I believe, for her problems.
Yeah.
Uh well And I mean I I I believe your your compassion uh is sincere, and I just uh I wish I could share the same compassion for the for the Kennedys, uh, because they didn't show any compassion for their own mother and and toward uh his ex-wife.
Well, that's that's you know, that's that's their problem.
I don't I don't I well that's that's one of the things I no longer base what I think on whether people think or what other people do.
And I no longer base what I do on whether people have done or are going to do.
Uh I I've learned that that being selfish is actually not a bad thing.
Um most people think self-interest is selfish.
I should rephrase that.
Self-interest is not a bad thing.
Doing the right thing for yourself, your family is not a bad thing.
It's not being selfish.
As I said, there's so much guilt that this is roiling this society.
It's why I've been so excited about Shelby Steele's peace all week.
It the collective guilt that we face is paralyzing us uh as a country and dealing with a war on terror and dealing with this Massawi trial and dealing with immigration.
It's all about it's all about guilt.
It's all about the uh the guilt that we've been forced to feel and that and guilt is easy.
But it's it's easy for people to make you feel guilty.
It's easy to manipulate that in people.
I'm just saying I don't do it anymore.
And I, you know, whether they've showed compassion to Joan Kennedy, I'm not doesn't it doesn't it doesn't matter to me.
I don't know all the details of that.
Anyway, all I'm telling you is this, just to sum this up before we go to this break.
I am not excusing Patrick Kennedy's behavior.
I'm not making fun of him for it either.
I'm saying he needs help, which he's not getting, and if he's not capable of knowing he needs help, then there are people who uh uh uh ostensibly love this guy who um can step in if they want to.
I'm saying he should have been forced to requ to take a breathalyzer test, that but for the interference of higher ups in the police force who came to the scene, he would have had that test, and we wouldn't have a controversy now.
I'm saying that there is a cover-up and gaps in his story that are beginning to show, and the truth is going to come out at some point.
Okay, that's it for the first hour of Open Line Friday.
There's other stuff out there, folks, that we're gonna discuss, we'll get into it.
A lot of immigration news and it's great.
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