I am Rush Limbaugh, and I'm sitting behind it in the prestigious Attila the Hun chair at the Distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I am living legend Rush Limbaugh, man, a living legend, a way of life.
Looking forward to talking to you, 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program today, email address, rush at EIBnet.com.
Let's go straight to the audio tape.
Last Tuesday, HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.
A portion of his closing remarks about the new incoming NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell.
Before he cleans out his office, have Paul Tagleyabu show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash.
By making the docile head of the players' union his personal pet, your predecessor kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted.
Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch.
Okay, now, Tagleybu is the one who has hired Bryant Gumbel to do play-by-play of eight late-season games on the NFL network starting on Thanksgiving night.
Now, that game will be the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos.
And to put this in perspective, let's go back to February of this year.
This is Bryant Gumbel and a portion of his closing remarks on that same show.
The Winter Games.
Count me among those who don't like them and won't watch them.
In fact, I figure when Thomas Paine said these are the times to try men's souls, he must have been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics.
Because they're so trying, maybe over the next three weeks, we should all try too.
Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing.
So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.
All right.
Now, we clearly, we could go back if we wanted to to the days that Bryant Gumbel hosted the Today Show.
And we could find countless political comments, and we could find countless comments that show a chip on his shoulder about race.
Now, the comment here about Gene Upshaw, Gene Upshaw, great offensive lineman for the great Oakland Raider teams back in the 60s and 70s, and he's black.
He is the leader of the players union.
And this business advising the new commissioner to keep the leash on Upshaw means that Upshaw is just a puppet.
He says he's just somebody that the owners can bend and shape and do whatever they want, and he's not his own man.
And that's why the owners are allowed to screw the players and make more money and more money and more money.
Tagley Boo was asked about this.
Well, this may be one of the most uninformed comments I've ever heard.
And they're going to have a meeting at the NFL, the NFL network, to determine whether or not Gumbel should be kept on as the announcer, lead announcer for the games that the NFL network will do later in the season.
Tagley Abu said, you know, I think things that Bryant Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and the owners are about as uninformed as anything that I have read or heard in a long, long time and quite inexcusable because they are subjects about which you can and should be better informed.
Having looked at how other people have had buyers' remorse when they took jobs, I guess they suggest to me that maybe Bryant's having buyers' remorse, and they called into question his desire to do the job and do it in a way that we in the NFL would expect it to be done.
Upshaw did not immediately return a call placed by the Associated Press.
So I guess, I mean, if I'm to interpret Commissioner Tagliabu correctly, he thinks maybe Bryant Gumbel doesn't want the job now.
Otherwise, why would he be talking this way?
Gumbel, for his part, says, hey, I'm just a journalist.
When I see the story out there, I report it.
Come on, Bryant.
I mean, smart guy.
This is not journalism.
This is commentary.
And it was so labeled, but don't call what you were doing journalism.
It's just at any rate.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Gumbel will not be dismissed, that the NFL will not decide to take him off of their game coverage no matter what he does.
It just won't happen.
Mark my words.
And if it does, I'll be the first to eat crow and admit that I was wrong.
Interesting poll.
Zogby poll published today in U.S. News and World Report in a Washington Whispers section.
Sorry, Hillary and Big John, you might have missed your chance in 2000.
That's because a new, that means McCain, not Kerry, a new and innovative poll from John Zogby about 2008 presidential candidates finds Newt Gingrich way out in front of other Republicans like McCain and also finds moderates like Mark Warner way ahead of liberals like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Now, here's the unusual thing about the Zogby poll that has been released to Whispers and U.S. News, when questioning likely primary voters, only brief biographies, not names, were given.
In other words, voters pick the one with the most experience, the best experience.
Without her name recognition working for her, Clinton came in a miserable sixth out of 10.
Looks like the Democrats want to grab the middle, says Zogby.
Who says outside the Beltway Democrats lean moderate?
Surprises on the GOP side.
Harsh immigration critic Tom Tancredo ranks fourth, showing the power of the anti-immigration issue.
Now, is the poll important?
Well, this guy, Washington Whispering, it's Paul Bedard that writes this, says, yeah, it's important, big time.
In 1999, Zogby's blind bios poll identified Maverick McCain as a very attractive candidate in primary states long before he almost knocked off George W. Bush.
He didn't almost knock him off.
The Democratic order and percentage are this.
Warner, 14.8, Wesley Clark, 14.2.
Oh, please.
Russ Feingold, 12.2.
How can you say that the outside Beltway people are moderates?
Evan Bayh, 11.1.
The Breck girl, John Edwards, at 10.4.
Hillary Clinton at 5.6.
Bill Richardson, the governor of Mexico, 5.3.
Let's see, John Kerry at 4.9.
Joe Biden at 2.8.
Here are the Republican rankings.
Gingrich at 21.4.
McCain 13.3.
Rudy at 11.2.
Tancredo, 9.9.
Hagel, 6.1.
Mike Huckabee, 5.8.
Bill Frist, 5.6.
George Allen, 4.9.
Sam Brownback, 4.3.
Mitt Romney, 3.8.
And Pataki 2.8.
And so, again, this is a poll taken where voters, likely voters, are not given names.
They are just given short biographies of the candidates and asked their preference.
And according to this, I mean, if you believe this, and you know that we here at the EIB network, very, very skeptical of polls, but this doesn't appear to be a news-making poll, such as a presidential preference poll or approval rating poll like the Drive-By Media puts out each and every day.
If you believe this, you would have to say it's Newt Gingrich's to lose in 2008.
Not just the nomination, but the race for the White House itself.
All right, a brief timeout here.
My good friends will be back.
Lots more to go.
Your phone calls are coming next at 800-282-2882.
Drive-by media panicking, ladies and gentlemen.
President Bush's approval numbers up to 42%.
Drive-by media is panting.
There's a tropical storm.
I don't think it's a tropical storm.
You had a tropical depression.
If it becomes a hurricane, it will become a hurricane by Friday, probably.
It's Hurricane Debbie still way out there off the coast of Africa.
And it's fascinating, too.
The Hurricane Center, if you read the discussions on this, they're disagreeing with their models.
They're pointing out the models have been gloriously wrong all year in predicting the intensity and the direction, the path of these hurricanes.
They're all predicting a turn north and then northeast out to the open Atlantic before threatening any land.
The Hurricane Center said, we don't believe it.
And they keep moving the track further south and west.
If it stays on the track it's on now, not forecast track, on the extrapolated track, this thing's making a beeline for North Carolina.
But they keep moving it.
It's way, way out there.
It's going to be days before anybody has any clue what's really going to happen to it.
But I'll tell you, I wouldn't be surprised.
There's a high-pressure ridge out there, and it's forecast to move east.
And that's why the models say it's going to turn north.
Once a high pressure gets out of there, it'll turn north.
There are also some upper-level westerlies that are threatening to come along and shear the top off this thing.
I'm just going to be so amused if this thing fizzles out, and I'm just going to see everybody's disappointment at the opportunity for destruction not happening.
Drive-by media totally occupied today with this pervert involved in the John Benet Ramsey case.
It had been breaking news.
John Mark Carr in court.
Breaking news.
John Mark Carr will not waive extradition.
Breaking news?
There is no news.
But at least it's got him sidetracked from destroying the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and criticizing President Bush.
All right, back to the phones.
Alan, Cell Phone, Michigan.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Ditto's from Dick DeVos Country, Michigan.
Thank you, sir.
I'd like to go back about the topic about the lawsuit about the freebies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What I'm wondering about.
That's at the baseball stadiums.
This is a guy, for those of you who didn't hear it, there are guys out there suing major league baseball teams for having women-only giveaway days, saying it's discriminatory.
Yeah, I'm all for that lawsuit.
I just wish it were aimed at the federal government.
How so?
Well, the federal government gets to give preferential treatment to people all the time, depending on, you know, race, creed, whatever, sex.
And actually, people say that.
And why can't the private sector do that?
Well, people sue on that all the time.
There are constant lawsuits over preferential treatment, affirmative action.
That happens all the time.
And it's, you know, sometimes they win some, sometimes they lose some.
This, you know, I can understand the lawsuits of the federal government over affirmative action, but that affects real things.
I mean, that affects who gets a job, who gets a promotion, who doesn't, who gets a contract to build some project.
Those are real.
Who gets into school and who doesn't?
Based on the stupidest criteria.
Race, based on skin color, based on guilt, not based on merit.
I can understand those suits.
But these people, come on, get a life out there.
Suing professional sports teams.
You're giving away pink caps to women only, women-only giveaway days.
How many giveaway days are there for kids only?
14 and under come in and they get whatever they get, a baseball bat, and you throw it on a field and you get thrown out.
Well, it's for the children, so what?
But where are the men?
The men, men get shafted.
Where's the so what?
What's new about that?
Men pay the freight and get the shaft at the same time.
I just, I'm going to tell you, you know what bugs me about this?
I'm going to tell you what really bugs me about this.
I just have no patience for people in life looking for handouts and for people in life looking for freebies.
And now we're talking about, let me tell you what these things cost.
I have been in this business.
We did Haltertop Day at Royal Stadium every summer.
We did it three or four summers in a row.
It was innovative, and the guys didn't care.
Obviously, we get all these little halter tops that said Royals across the front.
The little blue halter tops.
Women would get them as they come through the gates, go to bathrooms, put them on.
And it was a battle to watch the game that day.
TV cameras broadcasting the game showed more fan shots that day than any other game of the year.
And the men didn't care.
And the men enjoyed it.
It was a huge sellout every year, Halter Top Day.
And women didn't come.
We had some complaints from the feminazis early on, but it didn't take.
But like any other promotion, it gave itself away.
You know, those halter tops cost halter.
I mean, I shouldn't give this away.
But my gosh, folks, I mean, whatever it was, Batting Helmet Day or whatever, or Bat Day, it's peanuts.
I mean, the total cost for a giveaway day might be $15,000, which is not when you're giving away that many items.
Now, these are prices from the late 70s and early 80s, and I'm sure they're higher now.
No question, everything is.
But this notion that you go to a baseball game and you expect some freebie, this whole notion of I want something for nothing, you are expected to give me some.
It really rubs me the wrong way.
And when it gets down to the brass tax now of some people suing professional sports teams because they feel discriminated against, nobody's making you go there.
You don't have to go to the game that night.
You don't have to go to the game when they're giving women pink caps to wear.
You can go to the game any other night.
Nobody's forcing you to be there.
It's not like you have to have a job.
Well, take that back.
Depending on who you are, you don't have to have one of those either.
You'll be taking care of it.
But you get my drift.
Here is Genie in Boca Raton, Florida, just down the road.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Dittos from Buba Baba Boca.
Thank you.
After your comments about halter tops, I think my subject might be just a little droll, but I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I'm sure you can make it come alive.
And let's not remember or not forget, Jeannie, Boca is the home of this group of people.
I forget the acronym, but they couldn't get over Carrie's loss in 2004.
Yes, I live in East Boca.
We're staunch conservatives.
Yes.
Staunch.
But I wanted to call you.
I've never called a show before.
I am, although I am a talk radio junkie.
I couldn't have agreed with you more finely.
Somebody said the right things about Joe Lieberman.
You are so right.
We have to keep beating that drum.
He's a liberal.
I respected that man so much when he first came out and he was introduced to the public during the campaign for the presidential and vice presidential election in 2000.
We all knew about his background.
We learned his profile.
We thought he was just wonderful, squeaky clean.
And what did he do?
He fell in lockstep with a nut job named Al Gore.
Well, he had to.
I mean, that's part of the job if you accept the vice presidential nomination.
We're all talking about respect.
He's respect.
He's got integrity.
Where was his integrity?
He did exactly what Gore sold himself.
So I never forgot that.
And when you finally said it today, it moved me.
I don't trust him.
I know he is strong on Israel, the Middle East issues.
I'm with him 100%, but I'm not with him with other issues of the United States.
I'm glad that you were reached.
I love reaching people.
It's something that can never happen enough, and you've paid me a very powerful compliment.
I appreciate you.
And I just wanted, for people who didn't hear this, I made a casual observation last hour that I notice a lot of Republicans supporting Lieberman, and I notice a lot of people saying great things about Lieberman, and I understand why.
I mean, Lieberman is right in the war, and the war is the first and foremost thing, that and immigration, on people's minds right now.
And we've got people in this country trying to undermine the war effort.
We actually have people who are doing their best to secure our defeat, and they are Americans or people in this country, not just outside.
And Lieberman's right on that.
And we also see the Democrats being typically Democrats.
They're kicking him out of party.
They're trying to kick him when he's down.
They're trying to keep him from winning this race as an independent.
And so the natural inclination is to support him.
And a lot of Republicans are.
And the natural inclination is to befriend him.
I mean, here's a guy who's paying the ultimate price for standing with President Bush.
But can I give you a different perspective?
Joe Lieberman is such an oddity.
For those of you who, again, are young and you don't have a lot of contextual history in your noggins.
Joe Lieberman is what all elected officials used to be during time of war.
Now he's the only one.
During World War II, you didn't see Republicans trying to sabotage FDR's efforts.
Same thing in Korea.
Vietnam took a little while for that to bubble up.
But this is unique.
It used to be that politics stopped at the water's edge.
You can have all the disagreements you want over domestic policy.
When it came time, when America was attacked, when America's at war, everybody united behind that effort.
That is now out the window.
Joe Lieberman used to be what every Democrat was during a time of war, or vice versa.
Joe Lieberman's what every Republican was during a Democrat president during time of war.
Now he's the only one, and because he's the only one, he stands out.
And so naturally, the tendency is to embrace the guy and to buck him up and to support him because we need that vote on the war and so forth.
All I said last hour was, don't forget one thing.
Aside from this issue, he is still a liberal.
And if he wins this seat as an independent, he's going to keep voting with Harry Reid and John Kerry and these guys on every other domestic issue other than the war, which is a foreign policy issue.
So just don't fool yourself as to what's happening here.
Back in just liberals are liberals, folks.
And I would die for you.
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, and we will prove that again in mere moments.
Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Get this.
Now, admittedly, this is page six in the New York Post yesterday.
Osama bin Laden has more on his mind than just the destruction of the United States.
The world's most wanted terrorist is obsessed with Whitney Houston, so much so that he's even mulled a hit on her hubby, Bobby Brown.
Cola Bouffe, 37, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, Diary of a Lost Girl, expected in, to be excerted in the September Harpers.
He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Probably not a tough competition since most of the Arab women wear those burqas and cloths over their faces.
I mean, how many have ever seen?
Ever care about it?
I wonder when the last time he saw Whitney Houston is in order to make that judgment.
She has some serious problems.
She's not looked good for a number of years.
You've got to hear these next audio soundbites.
We got Marvin Kalb here.
Now, Marvin Kalb is a current commentator at the Fox News Channel.
Marvin Kalb was in Washington yesterday.
There was a forum, media coverage of the Middle East conflict.
Now, Marvin Kalb is at the Shorenstein Center for whatever it is up at Harvard.
Teaches media.
Teaches journalism, I guess.
And he also worked at CBS and ABC.
And here is the first of three comments made by Marvin Kalb, a Fox News contributor on the coverage of the Israeli-Hizbo war.
Fox had a rather simple but direct attitude toward the war in Lebanon.
Hezbollah was wrong.
Israel was aggressed upon.
And the United States ought to do what it could to help Israel.
CNN provided a much more, some may say, sophisticated, certainly an elaborated sense of reality.
And CNN ended up toward the end of its coverage.
CNN began to use the word resistance, which really struck me as kind of interesting because that is the word that Hezbollah uses about itself.
This is unbelievable.
This is fascinating.
It's interesting.
Let's talk about this.
The fact of the matter is that CNN was not more sophisticated.
CNN was just as straightforward too, Mr. Kalb.
They were pro-Hezbo.
What is this?
This is classic.
They were more sophisticated.
They were have a more elaborated sense of reality, Mr. Kalb.
These are the people that admitted being escorted around by Hezbollah media relations people and told what to shoot, told what they couldn't shoot.
And once again, we find the illustration clear as a bell that with liberals, the fact that there's a good way and a bad way, a right way and a wrong way.
But that's just too simplistic.
No, it's not sophisticated to think there's got to be a nuanced area of gray in there.
And CNN got into the gray and they covered it.
This is a guy who works at the Fox News Channel.
Now listen to this next one.
It used to be that we really felt that we were trying as best we could to cover it objectively, to cover both sides, to be fair to both sides, to explain the policy of both sides.
Stop the tape here a minute!
They re-cued that.
I just remembered something else.
CNN was doing profiles on these Hezbo people as they're great social workers, social planners, builders of bridges, builders of roads, builders of schools.
And they were being no, in no way inclined as such toward the Israelis.
I mean, the idea that they were more sophisticated, they were more duped.
They're just willing dupes.
They were willing accomplices of the Hezbo's.
No, not CNN and cable networks, but I mean, the Hezbo's were posing for pictures with corpses, and still photographers were in on the gag and reporting these pictures as though they were genuine when they were staged and maybe even not real in terms of content and time.
But listen to this sophisticated, illegitimate erudite malice of the sophistication of CNN versus the simplistic right and wrong, Hezbollah, bad, Israel, good.
This is what's wrong with modern day liberals is they can't look at evil and see it.
They don't want to see it.
Anyway, here's the second cut from the top.
It used to be that we really felt that we would try as best we could to cover it objectively.
Stop the tape.
When?
When did this somebody named for me when the last was in a war?
It was World War II.
How many years ago was that?
We're talking 60 years ago, Mr. Kalb.
It used to be that we really felt that we were trying as best we could to cover it objectively, to cover both sides.
Here's the rest of this.
To cover both sides, to be fair to both sides, to explain the policy of both sides.
Stop the tape.
Stop the tape.
Well, I don't recall any of this being extended toward Hitler and the Nazis, trying to be fair to both sides.
But yet we've got the modern equivalent of the Nazis operating today, and we've got to be fair.
And we've got to be explanatory.
We have to explain the policy of both sides.
Well, you don't explain the policy of both sides.
You don't explain the policy of bin Laden.
You don't explain the policy of al-Qaeda or the Hezbollah or any of these others.
You portray them as the oppressed.
You portray them as people with grievances.
You portray them as victims and minorities.
They're victims of the big, bad United States and its ally, the big, bad Israel.
You always side with people you think are underdogs.
It's unfair that there are underdogs.
This is insulting to me, but I'm in the mood to be insulted.
So I'm going to keep listening.
Today, the media appears to be broken down into camps where Fox prides itself on being pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-freedom.
Stop the tape.
What's wrong with that?
What in the world is wrong with the whole notion of people who report the news being pro-country in which they live?
We're a great country.
This is an indictment.
He's issuing an indictment.
This is not good for journalism.
We're now broken down into camps.
Fox prides itself on being pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-free.
What's wrong with that?
Here's the rest of this.
It turns out that very conservative newspapers are pretty much the same way.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, other of the mainstream media today, again, try to do it down the middle.
Oh, my God.
My God, I cannot believe this.
What is the phrase I get in my email?
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
The New York Times down the middle?
This is a guy.
This is a good illustration of what's happening out there at our major institutions of so-called higher learning, college campaign.
This guy's teaching.
I think he's a teacher.
I don't know what he does.
He just shows up with the Shorenstein logo in the background when he shows up there to do his commentary on Fox.
So you've got the conservative newspapers, and you've got Fox, pro-America, pro-freedom, pro-democracy.
And then you've got the New York Times, which is more mainstream.
Now, when somebody explained to me, what is more mainstream for America than pro-freedom, pro-America, pro-democracy?
It's embarrassing to people like Marvin Kalb, apparently.
Very, very, very troubling.
We have one more to go here.
Listen to this technique.
He offers a way for journalists to win the Pulitzer Prize.
People today turn on the news not to find out what happened, but to get confirmation of what it is that they already believe.
And in the Middle East, we are involved in a battle of biases with everybody believing that he has discovered the truth.
One should learn in that part of the world, especially, truth is very hard to find.
And the person, the reporter who has the guts to say, I don't know, is the one who ought to get the Pulitzer Prize.
Folks, does it get any better than this?
You got a guy, a journalist.
He's over in the Middle East.
He's trying to report what goes on.
And every night on the news or every day in the newspaper, his story is basically, I watched this today.
This happened, but I don't know.
Pulitzer Prize winner.
In the meantime, we don't watch to find out what happened.
We watch to confirm what we already believe.
We're involved in a battle of biases in the Middle East, everybody believing that he's discovered the truth.
Well, in that part of the world, truth is very hard to find.
What's so hard to understand about beheadings and mass murder, the killing of innocent children and civilians?
What's so hard to understand, Mr. Kalb, about an enemy which hides itself in civilian clothes, launches rockets from people's homes, will not let them leave the battle area?
What is so hard to find about that?
What is so difficult about the truth in that scenario, Mr. Kalb?
I'm sorry.
Ladies and gentlemen, forgive me.
I'm probably offending elitist journalists now because my biases are showing.
Which, of course, is better than other things showing, I guess.
Back in just a second.
I'm going to go back to Marvin Kalb, just one of these bites.
Soundbite number six.
Again, ladies, are you ready to go on that, Mike?
Here we go.
Let's listen to the, I don't mean the whole thing.
I just once it gets to pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-freedom.
It used to be that we really felt that we would try as best we could.
By the way, stop the tape.
You are listening to arrogant elitism as I think it has best ever been represented.
It'd be tough to top this in terms of attitude, condescension, idiocy, stupidity.
People may have high IQs, but they know nothing.
No, they may be educated.
They don't know anything.
Cover it objectively, to cover both sides, to be fair to both sides, to explain the policy of both sides.
Of course.
Today, the media appears to be broken down into camps, no, where Fox prides itself on being pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-freedom.
Stop the tape.
Now, I asked earlier in this program when doing a little riff on negotiating with terrorists, how do you negotiate with evil?
When it's your core values, how do you negotiate with somebody?
What is in it for you when you give up a core value, ladies and gentlemen?
For example, let's say I am a well-known and established pro-lifer.
Let's say that I'm in a negotiation with Feminazi over modifying abortion.
And the Feminazi is intractable in her position.
No!
We're going to have as many abortions as possible because it's a political purpose.
We're not going to give up the freedom of reproductive rights.
Not at all.
I said, wait a minute.
You can't legally have an abortion beyond the first trimester.
Well, yeah, okay, okay.
How about if I say, look, I'm willing to let you have an abortion up to the first trimester.
And the feminazi says, hmm, you're willing to let me have an abortion, even if it's just up to the first trimester, first month, first month?
What's the point of my doing that?
Some people might say, well, Rush, good move because you're moving the chains or you are shifting the momentum or whatever.
But I've still compromised a core value.
I've just agreed to let a feminazi set the terms of when an abortion can when I don't believe in it at all.
So what's the point?
Trast this with Marvin Kalb here complaining about Fox priding itself on being pro-America, pro-democracy, pro-freedom.
How can you pick a middle ground between pro-freedom and anti-freedom?
Where do you start giving away freedom, Mr. Kalb?
Pro-freedom?
You mean there's an anti-freedom that somebody needs to recognize?
And there's an anti-freedom we Americans need to understand, maybe take on a little bit of it ourselves just to get along with people?
How do you come to a common ground with something as disparate as freedom or anti-freedom?
The best way to explain this to Mr. Kalb would be to put it in terms that he understands.
Mr. Kalb, let's talk about the First Amendment, freedom of the press.
I think you've got too much.
No, I'm very bullish on freedom of the press, Mr. Limbaugh.
I am very pro-freedom.
Well, I think you got too much and you're ruining America.
I think your freedom has gone too far and you can destroy things.
You know, I want to rein in the freedom of the First Amendment that you have.
Well, you can't.
It's in the Constitution.
Well, wait a minute.
You want to talk about freedom versus anti-freedom elsewhere, but you're not willing to negotiate on your own freedom, but you'll sit around it and assist others in losing theirs by choosing the wrong side.
These people, ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to a core value, it is liberalism and it is dangerous and it has to be observed and known at all times who these people are and what they will do if given the chance.
They will sell everybody but themselves down the river and they'll think they're doing God's work.
At the same time, this is John in Detroit.
John, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Detroit Dittos, Rush.
How are you?
I'm fine, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, somebody ought to ask Marvin Kalb, how sophisticated was CNN's journalism when they gave Saddam Hussein a veto over critical stories as a condition of keeping the Baghdad Bureau open?
I don't think Marvin Kalb would have any problem with that at all.
I think Marvin Kalb would probably think Eason Jordan should be given an award for it.
It doesn't strike me as sophisticated in playing down the middle.
No, in a liberal, no, no, no, no, no, no.
As far as liberals are concerned, it's the ultimate sophistication.
Let me explain it to you.
I know these people, my friends.
I know them like every square inch of my glorious naked body.
Eason Jordan thought he was being brilliant when he wrote that up in the New York Times, explaining how, yes, we did suppress stories of maltreatment of Iraqis by Saddam, but that was to protect our journalists and to protect our photographers and to keep our bureau open.
And people read this, what the hell's bureau worth when you can't tell us the truth?
But to these people, keeping that bureau open and reporting the news and keeping feet on the ground and cameras and microphones on the scene, that was the achievement.
Why, to them, they manipulated Saddam.
Saddam wasn't manipulating them.
They were playing the game, and in their minds, Saddam was being duped because they were succeeding in staying there.
I'm telling you, you think that this is an exaggeration.
You people who still doubt me are going to have to trust me.
They thought it was highly sophisticated and worth an award, or Eason Jordan wouldn't have written that piece on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
But that was a coup d'état or a coup.
I mean, that was a real achievement to keep that bureau open in Baghdad so that they could report lies or not report truth, however you wish to look at it.
But, of course, truth, that's arbitrary.
It's up to CNN in a sophisticated way to determine.
About that report that Osama bin Laden has a crush on Whitney Houston.