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May 5, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
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 week in media has brought us to the weekend, the Rush Limbaugh 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 EIBnet.com.
I'll tell you what, if I'm Cynthia McKinney, ever since last night, yesterday afternoon, I got to be wondering what's going on in Washington.
Yes, I'm talking about the circumstance involving Patrick Kennedy.
The whole issue here is, I mean, the primary issue here is cover-up.
Apparently, one police officer wanted to test Congressman Kennedy.
He was overruled and went public through the union.
And if he's telling the truth, that means that higher-ups have covered up whatever went on.
This happened Wednesday, Thursday morning at 2.45, right?
Early Thursday morning at 2.45.
Now, it's troubling here that there was no DUI test.
I'm not going to get into criticizing Congressman Kennedy for he's obviously got some problems, and I don't think his family is helping out much with the real problems that he's got.
We can go through the list of them.
Assaulting this worker at the airport out in L.A. and car accident two weeks ago and other run-ins.
And this kind of behavior is certainly a signal, and it's not being dealt with by him or his family, apparently.
They're into this cover-up now.
And the latest on the story here, ladies and gentlemen, is that he is saying that it was a combination of pills.
He was basically sleep driving.
He was taking ambien and a piece of a kind of medication for gastroenteritis, and it caused him to be disoriented.
He woke up 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 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 with anything, it can't be stopped.
But of course, Congress had adjourned three hours prior to this.
So the story is that sometime around 2.45 a.m., he said, I drove the few blocks to the Capitol complex believing I needed to vote.
Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication.
Questions arose surrounding the wreck.
Amid police reports that Kennedy was staggering and appeared intoxicated after nearly hitting a Capitol Police cruiser and then striking 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 may have taken Ambien and that it disoriented him.
And of course, I don't know, took Ambien and woke up.
What is it?
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.
People 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 people take ambient and then they go walking around the neighborhood and they ran into a tree or something and I wake up.
I don't know how they got there.
Oh, yes, people take Ambien and get up in the middle of the night and go driving and then get hit something and they get out of the car and I start staggering.
It was amazing to watch, literally carrying the water for the whole notion that this is related to taking Ambien.
So 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 jacket and a tie.
He would have had to put on his shoes.
He would have had to find his keys, get in a car, drive to the Capitol all in his sleep.
If this defense is what we're being led to believe happened.
Now, 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 police say they smelled alcohol.
He was exhibiting strange behavior, his slurred speech, slightly slurred speech, and he was weaving and unable to walk steadily.
So 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.
And 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 McKinney name in Washington doesn't carry the weight that the Kennedy name in Washington carries.
She faces, as Thomas Lifson, the American thinker, has some interesting facts today.
She faces potential legal jeopardy.
And now a rich white congressman walks away without so much as a breathalyzer test from circumstances that would ordinarily demand 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 have a bit of a generation gap.
This I didn't know, but apparently there's a bit of a generation gap between the older supervisory ranks accustomed to treating Congress like royalty and new recruits that 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 the rules applying to all.
Now, as to Congressman Kennedy himself, there's a lot of troubling episodes here, starting with his 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.
And he was in a traffic accident last month in his home district in Rhode Island, according to Howie Carr, who reported that the mishap occurred as Kennedy was hurrying into the parking lot of a pharmacy in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
Now, Congresswoman McKenny, 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 they must have her tied down somewhere, folks, to keep her from a microphone to keep her from a television.
Honestly, look at the difference in standards of treatment here.
Look at the difference in how various circumstances are being dealt with.
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 by asking the incident that she's involved with to be forgotten.
So 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 room driving your car, because that's what her recourse is.
Now, as to his problems, I have to, I really do, with all of these problems and all of these danger signals, you have to wonder where is his dad?
I know that Patrick Kennedy is an adult, but it's clear that Patrick Kennedy needs some help.
He's not a kid anymore, really.
I can tell you folks, he needs some help.
And the two real issues in this story are just that, the cover-up that took place or is taking place, and that his dad seems oblivious.
The family seems oblivious.
If his dad had spent half the time taking care of his son and dealing with his son's problems 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 deal with the problem.
Now, the Boston, 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 the 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 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, taking ambien and phenergen.
It's for gastroenteritis.
The first statement from ABC, ABC had a blurb last night about 9:30, and they said that what was the, it was taking medication for depression.
Now, ambiene's not for that.
Well, I don't think it is.
Sleep medication.
And gastromenteritis, fenergan, I don't know what that's got to do with whatever.
I'm just, I wonder if there are going to be other witnesses at the Hawk and Dove who come forward or if the Kennedy spin machine is going to get to them before the cops do.
But aside from that, this is a police matter, and it's a cover-up, and it's also a personal tragedy story because this is disaster waiting to happen for a human being, Patrick Kennedy.
And all these efforts to cover this up and say it didn't happen and all this is not helping him, is the bottom line.
It may help the Democratic Party, and it may help political fortunes of others 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 let me explain Open Line Friday if you're one of the new people tuning in and happens daily, a large tune-in factor.
By the way, look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
It's over 11.5.
It's a top in six years on its way to its record of 11,700 and some change.
Economic news continues to be good.
Of course, Drive Buy Media loves the fact that the new job rate, the 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 is 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, 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, 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 3 o'clock in the morning that you get afforded special privileges.
Last night on Anderson Cooper's 360, he interviewed Lou Cannon via phone.
He said, you had said, quoted as saying earlier, officers on the scene said the congressman appeared intoxicated.
Would the congressman 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 that a 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 Hawkin' Dove who says that she saw him consuming adult beverages that night, earlier that night.
Now we've got a dispute over, was it drugs that caused 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, I keep harkening back to Cynthia McKinney, but I'm almost tempted to get in on a legal defense fund for her because clearly there's a double standard of treatment going on depending on who you are in that town, even if you are a member of Congress.
Last night, Anderson Cooper again asks Lou Cannon of the 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 suspected, they would normally do field sobriety tests, and you could either do a roadside breath test or take somebody in and do 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 is gone forever now, because obviously higher-ups interceded.
And don't forget, Thomas Lifson, the American Spectator, says you've got two different groups of people in the Capitol Hill Police Force.
You've got the supervisory people and new recruits after 9-11 who 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.
And the story now is, well, yeah, I was 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 Ambien, driving under the influence of Ambien while asleep and so forth.
I mean, it's believe me, folks, this is not helping the human being, Patrick Kennedy.
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 Congressmen 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 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 who see the rules applying to all.
Stephanopoulos is then asked by Charlie Gibson, does this have widespread implications or is it just a personal story for Pat?
I get this.
They're asking about the political results 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.
What 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.
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 has been abandoned.
If the Republicans were smart, they'd start talking about a culture of treason.
And they'd get their act in gear when it comes to illegal immigration and stop pussyfooting around on that and ceding that to the Democrats.
But 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, oh my gosh, this is what Patrick Kennedy is.
Let me tell you something.
It 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 1986.
And you are going to put his health and perhaps his life and his future, and you're going to subordinate that to however you can spin this so as to not hurt the Democratic Party and its electoral 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 involved in reporting news in a credible way.
It said that reporters now have Patrick Kennedy's bar tab from The Hawkin Dove on Wednesday night.
Now, I'm still trying to track this down.
I'm telling you, this is somebody that I trust that's totally sent me the note.
And we will, if it's true, it won't be long before you're hearing about it in a number of places.
Allison Fenton, Missouri.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Thanks.
Rush, I cannot 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, look at Alice, I'm glad you called because 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 Cynthia McKinney or over anybody else.
But that's a police problem.
I don't know what he did to engineer it.
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 line cops who were out there home and they had somebody drive the kid home or the young man home or Patrick K. He's not a kid anymore.
There's a huge cover-up going on about this and it is not right.
Well, I'll tell you, 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 I know is that I had to say something, Alice, that caused you to must have hit your button out of it.
What was it I said that's got you upset?
Because nothing I said is inaccurate.
Well, because in spite of the fact that you're saying that 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 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 have that luxury.
Well, you know what?
Whatever charge comes out against him, it will be watered down.
And I'm referring specifically to 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 it.
Wait a second.
You're going to compare me to Patrick Kennedy's circumstance?
In a way.
How so?
Because you were brought up in charge of the city.
Tell me where they're similar.
I had a problem.
I admitted it.
I went and dealt with it.
I have been clean from the painkillers for almost two years and eight months.
I went public.
Wait a second now.
There's no cover-up.
I sought and received help.
I didn't endanger anybody else.
Then this case, there's a cover-up.
There's no breathalyzer.
I fought this for two and a half years, and they wanted to charge me with much more than they did.
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 happened to that housekeeper?
Hang on a minute, Alice.
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 there was no connection?
You didn't buy 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 going to dignify it by doing so.
You're getting around it.
No, I'm not getting around anything.
I'm answering your question.
I'm not going to 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, it's interesting here.
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.
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.
It's an amazing thing to watch certain human beings process information and come up with the conclusions that they come to.
In your case, 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 to people who don't have the ability to understand it the first time they hear it.
Glenn in West Caldwell, New Jersey, welcome to the EIB Network.
Thank you, Rush.
Let's take what Representative Kennedy said.
Let's just take hypothetically that it's true, although it's probably not.
But let's just take 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 obviously the police found him and he was driving.
Therefore, what's the issue?
He has committed a crime, period.
Well, he had the presence of mind to say he was driving to a vote, in which case he can't be stopped or charged, except the House had adjourned three hours earlier.
Well, look, there was a I mean, that's the point.
This is a cover-up.
Somebody's covering this up, and that's pure and simple.
This doesn't happen for everybody, and it didn't happen for me.
Alan should be arrested in no one should be arrested in November when we go to vote to the polls and elect our congressman, then, I guess.
Yeah, well, it's, I don't know, it's obvious that there are conflicting stories here, and the mechanism by which we would all have the truth, whether there was a breathalyzer or a breathalyzer test, is not now going to happen because it's too late.
So I guess it's about it.
I don't know what more is this.
Well, Nathan in Virginia Beach, welcome to the program, sir.
Nice to have you.
Hello, Rush.
Hi.
My name is Nathan.
I'm from Virginia Beach.
I'm a former radio producer and honored to talk to you.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Great to have you on the program.
I just want to tell you that, you know, sometimes you do come across a bit egotistical, but being a radio producer, a former one, I've dealt with a lot of people in radio, and everybody behind the mic has a bit of an ego.
But in Alaska.
Except that I deserve mine.
See, that's the difference.
Well, you burned.
I mean, they don't call you the godfather for nothing.
But you, in the last few weeks, especially when I heard the leukemia-than 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 utter, I try to.
And I could tell that what you have coming out sometimes is ego, but sometimes it's right from the heart.
Now, what you just mentioned about Patrick Kennedy, even though he's a Kennedy, and even though, you know, we all know that is family and that you're at odds with the Democrats, you're showing true compassion for the man's well-being.
And 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 just tried to protect my privacy and protect my constitutional right.
If you're going to say I did something, you better prove it.
I'm not going to make it easy for you to prove it.
I'm not going to deny my constitutional right so you can prove something, especially when it didn't happen.
I could tell you as a member of a 12-step program myself, that I can relate to what you probably have gone through.
And I also know not to believe half the BS that's published out there.
So, you know, just if people listen to you and listen to the way you present yourself and they're fans of yours, they could hear it through the malarkey.
They could hear when you're presenting.
I know.
Nathan, I really appreciate this.
I really do.
My audience, 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.
People that don't listen to this program, who are the source of all this 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, discredit and damage the credibility of conservative people who are public spokespeople and leaders of a movement and so forth.
I understand all that.
This is one of the things that constantly amazes me.
We're on the air 15 hours a week.
We're on over 600 radio stations.
What happens here is not a secret.
You don't need a password to listen to this program.
Anybody can turn it on and get it.
Those that don't don't want to.
Let me say one thing here, folks, about the Patrick Kennedy business and my attention being paid to how it appears there's no concern really for him as a human being or as a person versus whatever fallout there might be to the Democratic Party or this, that, and the other thing.
Aside from the cover-up aspects, that's a police issue.
Let me just tell you this.
As you know, I went to a rehabilitation, call it clinic, center, whatever, for five weeks starting in October of 2003 through mid-November of 2003.
And the reason that I am 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 pain pills.
I 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 circumstances such as Patrick Kennedy's, and there's a number of them, and there are 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, inspirational, positive things that can happen to a human being.
They happened to me.
Now, I haven't been able to talk about this while this investigation has been ongoing because 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 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 this is, to me, it was as worthwhile as the first and second grades combined, even if there were no addiction involved.
I'm a huge believer in it.
Now, not everybody that comes out of these rehabilitation clinics succeeds.
A relapse rate is really, really high.
They don't even know what it is.
The success rate is well under 50%, as you know, by public figures who relapse and have the same problem.
But for me, it worked because I sunk myself into it.
It was almost sunk myself into this as much as when I was 16 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.
You 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 reasons I don't want to go into here, but you had to have one.
And I wanted out of that school so bad, so fast because I wanted that license.
I got out of there in four weeks, 18 hours a day in class and study, and I sunk myself into this too after about three days when it finally hit me the value involved.
And that's why I know 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 cause no harm to themselves.
And that's only going to perpetuate this, and it's only going to make it worse for him.
Back in just a second.
And to, I guess, home territory for the Kennedys, Wooster, Massachusetts.
Bill, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Diddles from the land of Kennedy.
Thanks for watching.
Listen, I want to echo the 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.
That poor woman, she dealt with all kinds of scandals, a philandering husband.
And her thanks for it was they tried to have her committed a couple of years ago.
They tried to have her committed.
Was that just problems?
Look, I don't know.
I only know surface things about Joan Kennedy.
Did they ever try to help her and it didn't work?
And they finally give up after trying, or did they never try?
Well, they had a big battle with her house.
They were fighting over the estate in Kennedy.
I mean, in this board, and they tried to, they did have her committed, I believe, for her problems.
Yeah.
Well.
And I mean, I believe your compassion is sincere.
And I just, I wish I could share the same compassion for the Kennedys because they didn't show any compassion toward their own mother and toward his ex-wife.
Well, that's, you know, that's their problem.
I don't, I've, 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.
I've learned that being selfish is actually not a bad thing.
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 is roiling this society.
It's why I've been so excited about Shelby Steele's piece all week.
The collective guilt that we face is paralyzing us as a country in dealing with the war on terror and dealing with this Masawi trial and dealing with immigration.
It's all about guilt.
It's all about the guilt that we've been forced to feel.
And guilt is easy.
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 whether they've showed compassion to Joan Kennedy, I'm not, 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 ostensibly love this guy who can step in if they want to.
I'm saying he should have been forced to take a breathalyzer test, but for the interference of higher-ups and 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 going to discuss.
We'll get into it.
A lot of immigration news, and it's great.
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