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Aug. 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:20
August 28, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
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Hello, my friends, and welcome back.
Nice to be with you.
Great to have you with us from high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, one of the most frequently visited tourist sites in all of New York, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence and Broadcasting Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800 28282.
The email address is Rush at EIB net.com.
Mike, we're going to start here with audio sound bites starting at number five.
When we get going, get this.
You know, when I when I read a story like this, I'm going to be honest with you.
When I read a story like this, there's a part of me that makes it it isn't worth it.
It just is just so absurd that that there's no changing it.
Even I, ladies and gentlemen.
Momentarily until I slap myself, uh, get caught.
Listen to this.
For the first time in four decades.
Cubans someday face the possibility of confronting a hurricane without longtime leader Fidel Castro personally leading the nation through the storm.
This is Reuters.
Castro, who underwent surgery to stop intestinal bleeding at the end of July, and Raul Castro, who took over, remained out of sight as Hurricane Ernesto bore down on the Caribbean nation.
Can you ever can you imagine a story like this written about any leader in this well, maybe Bill Clinton?
Uh my God, I I'm just it renders me speechless.
I don't quite know even how to react to this.
It reminds me of the last such story.
There was a hurricane last year or two years ago.
I forget there's so many hurricanes.
And it was going between, it was heading out toward the Pinar del Rio region of Cuba, which is the western part where the cigar tobacco's grown.
And apparently Castro went out there.
This was the legend.
This was the story.
There weren't any photos of this.
But Castro drove out there.
And when he got out to get out of his vehicle and stood up and put his hand up like this, as though he's pushing against the wall, and he starts shouting at the hurricane, do not hit the motherland.
Do not hit and of course the storm missed Cuba.
And the news report, my God, the people of Cuba were blown away with the power of Fidel.
And of course, that's why we get this story.
Fidel's either dead or in a hospital room recuperating and can't go out there and keep this hurricane away from Cuba.
Man, the love and adoration that these people in the media have for tyrants, dictators, thugs, socialist communist leaders is just amazing.
Then there's this.
The drive-by media has gone out and done some polls about people and Hurricane Katrina, and they went out and they asked groups.
I guess a la 60 Minutes or CBS and Survivor.
This is from the Associated Press.
Almost six in ten people, 57%, say they feel the nation is not ready to handle another major disaster.
Fewer than a third approve of President Bush's handling of Katrina.
And about four in ten say they worry about becoming a victim of a disaster like a hurricane, a tornado, or an earthquake, which is up from three in ten two years ago.
So the drive-by media is happy.
You are in further panic mode.
You're scared even more.
You are hopeless.
You are helpless, and you're worried about it, and you're being honest about it, and they love it because they have created that attitude in you.
Now, those are the numbers about the numbers of people that are worried, but who is it that's worried?
The most likely to have very strong feelings that the country isn't ready to face another disaster include women over 45.
But of course, that fits because we had the story last week that most of those women also fear becoming bag ladies.
So it would fit if a woman fears becoming a bag lady, she would fear a hurricane.
So we throw that out.
White women, those with high school educations are less.
Okay, so dumb white chicks, they also fear it, and they Probably fear becoming bag ladies, too, and Democrats.
So let me read the whole sentence.
Who's worried?
Those most likely to have very strong feelings the country isn't ready to face another disaster include women over 45, white women who's uh with a high school education or less, and Democrats.
That makes sense.
Uh Democrats not only are they not happy, they are miserable, they're probably living in palpable fear each and every day anyway.
Those living in the South and those with low incomes are more likely than people living in other regions of the country and those with higher incomes to worry about becoming a victim of a disaster.
Only 31% of Americans approve of the way President Bush handled Hurricane Katrina, down from 46% a year ago.
Well, what's different sent 110 billion dollars down there?
What's supposed to happen?
If if that's what the government does, they send money down there.
If if if there hasn't been significant rebuilding, can can maybe.
Maybe for those of you out there who are frightened, and maybe those of you out there who uh have succumbed to the year-long relentless pressure, the drive-by media to blame Bush for all of this.
Can I uh tell you something?
Newsflash, Bush did not cause Hurricane Katrina.
How do you handle a hurricane?
Like asking how do you handle a woman?
Bush didn't cause the hurricane.
Bush didn't steer the hurricane.
Well, the Corps of Engineers took the blame for the levees.
Did you see that over the weekend?
Now they took not only they took the blame for it, they also said, hey, they still ain't fixed.
We get a cat three here, they're not gonna hold.
Well, uh I just I I I this is so much of this has to do with the fact that it is an election year.
Uh and it has everything to do with the political results, and I just find it frustrating that when looking at Hurricane Katrina, nobody is bothering to look at the people there who have the actual responsibility for rebuilding the place.
And when we talk about Hurricane Katrina, by the way, we why is it we only hear about New Orleans?
Why do we not hear about Biloxi and Gulfport in Mississippi?
Why did we not hear about other areas that were as devastated as New Orleans was?
They just weren't as big.
Devastation was actually worse in some other place.
Why is we never hear about that?
Let's go to the audio sound bites, ladies and gentlemen, starting Good Morning America today, host Robin Roberts interviewing former President Clinton about Hurricane Katrina.
She said, Would you have done anything differently this past year if you were still in office and running the government and helping get back on track?
I think that it's really important that the state and local and federal leaders have a common plan.
They announce it early, and they give benchmark reports on twice a month or something, you know.
Uh and I might have done something more just because I'm, you know, I I feel so close to the area.
Oh, be still my beating heart.
I might have done something more because I, you know, f I felt so close to that area.
Red light districts are what was it?
Um It's just there's more.
You want to hear it?
Yes, Robin Roberts.
Is it a part of modern politics, Mr. President, when Time magazine can ask, do you love or hate Senator Clinton?
Does that does that does that cross the line?
Of course, when time doesn't cover his Russian limb, well, bad for America.
That, of course, doesn't cross the line.
But when you uh run a uh cover on um uh do you love or hate Senator Clinton, you ask if that crosses the line.
Well, I I wish they hadn't done it, but what they all say she's a polarizing figure, but the truth is that we were pretty heavily polarized when I was president.
The opposition is partly because she's strong-willed and and states are physicians strongly, and partly because they beat up on us pretty hard for eight years, and uh, you know, my opposition goes down because I'm not a candidate anymore.
I can't run for anything, so it's not much profit and beaten up on me.
Oh, I get it.
You hear what Clinton, do you know how you can I translate this for you?
Clinton's actually saying, Hey, people, you know, they still hate me, but I can't, they can't I'm gone.
So I have taken out on some and take it out on Hillary.
It's really not aimed at her, it's aimed at me.
It's me, me.
Think of me, me, everything's about me.
Uh Hurricane Katrina, uh uh uh war on terror, uh all it's all it's all about me.
Uh remember Rocky Vaccarella, the uh the man that strode to the microphones with President Bush from New Orleans after meeting him in the Oval Office, uh, and uh said that uh wish President Bush could have four more years and so forth last Thursday night on Hardball, a portion of uh David Schuster, the reporter's report.
The White House would love for Americans to forget about everything that went wrong a year ago and focus instead on the future.
So to help the president met this week with survivor Rocky Vacarella, a White House spokesperson later acknowledged that Vaccarella is an active Republican who once ran for local office on the Republican ticket.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, quote, tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors are still engaged in an unparalleled struggle to rebuild their lives.
President Bush is holding a public relations blitz that the survivors of Katrina can ill afford.
What in the world does Bush doing anything have to do after he sent 110 billion dollars down there?
What is the fact that he's doing anything with anybody have to do with rebuilding efforts in New Orleans?
Zilch.
Zero, not a brief timeout.
Back with more after this.
Before we go back to the phones, let's uh let's listen to school bus Negan.
This is uh last night CBS 60 Minutes, the correspondent Byron Pitts.
Uh, and he says to uh to Negan, well, you hear it all the time.
Why can't you clean this area up faster than you have?
People blame you for that.
All right.
You guys in New York City can't get a hold in the ground, Fake.
And it's five years later.
So let's be fair.
He's got a point.
He's got a point.
But he was being in the sense.
The thing in common is that it's liberals in New York and it's liberals in New Orleans.
Uh and uh, you know, neither one is uh setting records here for any rebuilding.
In fact, New Orleans is probably ahead of the game in terms of uh rebuilding.
So yesterday I meet the press.
Tim Russert said to uh school bus Negan, you've now had several days to reflect on this.
Uh this attacking New York and the hole in the ground.
Will you apologize for calling what many believe is sacred ground the place where thousands Americans died as a hole in the ground?
Sixty minutes, we did that piece about two months ago.
Uh, and I got a very direct email from them saying that I shouldn't uh do this interview uh because they thought they had an exclusive two months ago.
Uh then we started to see all these promos and what have you.
The context of that discussion was about why is it taking so long for New Orleans uh to get back up to speed, and I was mainly using uh the comparison of the site, and I should have probably called it uh an undeveloped site as of yet, uh, but I used the the a term that seemed to have gotten some people upset.
I meant no disrespect for anyone.
I have seen death, I've seen the destruction, and I was just using it as a comparison to show how difficult it is uh for people to rebuild after a major disaster.
Okay, there's uh there's that.
Uh isn't it interesting?
Uh New York is sacred ground, the hole in the ground, sacred ground.
Can't talk about it.
Can't show the video of 9-11.
No, no, no, too soon, still too soon.
We are too emotionally fragile.
We can't handle it.
No!
But we're going through a two-week orgy of reliving disaster called Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
And we're probably gonna relive all the lies, too.
About all the murders that didn't play place, and all the rapes that didn't take place, and all the toxic soup that didn't happen, the water, supposedly poisonous.
Um I want are we gonna relive uh Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat in Louisiana's trip to his house to get his $90,000 or whatever he took out of there?
We're gonna relive that.
Isn't it amazing?
I sort of understand school bus Negan's frustration here.
Of course, for these guys, it's a celebration.
They get to go out and blame somebody else for why nothing's happened down there.
You get to blame the Republicans and blame President Bush.
Um, just sitting around waiting for what?
Uh and if and of course, when it comes to New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, can see it all.
We can hear it all.
We can do retrospective, we can bring out all those Pullitcher Prize-winning journalists to recount the horrors, the details, many of which were abject lies.
But so what?
We want a Pullitcher doing it.
We'll try to win a Pulitzer again for our recoverage.
Yes, another Pulitzer for not letting people forget.
Never forget, never ever forget what happened when George Bush let Hurricane Katrina destroy New Orleans and Aleve's and then didn't rebuild it.
But when it comes to 9-11, ground zero.
No, it's too soon.
It's too soon.
Pure politics, drive-by media knows if you relive 9-11, it only enhances everybody's concern for the war on terror we find ourselves in.
So and this is the kind of stuff Democrats think it is going to win them elections.
Here's Andrew in Columbus, Ohio.
Andrew, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hey, Megadetto's rush.
Thank you.
I just uh I wanted to comment about uh what Ray Negan said about being fair to New York City when uh New York City was actually able to get all the rubble out of the hole and get the city cleared out, and people in New Orleans still have cars in their front yard and boats in their living rooms, and you got him passing down a five million dollar deal to take all the cars out of the city so that so that what he could he could take responsibility for being a couple years later and 25 million dollars later trying to clean up the mess.
Wait a minute.
I vaguely remember this.
Run this run this remove the junk cars out of town business again.
Uh uh, there was an outfit that offered to do this from Texas or somewhere for X amount of dollars, and Nagus said no, we're gonna do it locally, and it it's like costing five times as much as the other people bid.
Is that is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
Uh and it still hasn't been done.
I wonder if they've been paid, though.
I bet they have, even though, even though it has well, that's that's actually a valid point.
I have to I have to grant you out there, Andrew, that that's a uh that's a valid point.
And that is why the question.
I think when people say what's taking so long about the rebuilding, there is uh an element of what's taking so long about the cleanup.
Uh but it was bad, folks, it was disastrous now.
It's still shocking to see some of the uh damage that still hasn't been touched.
But that's what leads to the um what leads to the questions.
But there's an answer to all of this.
There's a there's a there's a there's a plain simple answer.
And it is that too many people down there have just been weaned in the welfare state mentality.
That the their idea of government is all these kinds of things get taken care of.
Uh it just it just happens.
Like the food stamps arrive and the welfare check arrives, and and uh and all this this is supposed to be taken care of.
I mean, I people misunderstand this, think I'm being critical of people who live there.
I feel sorry for them.
I feel sorry for anybody who's been weaned in a welfare state.
I feel sorry for anybody who's been misled like this.
I think it's tragic.
I think it's literally tragic how so many people's own future, their own ambitions, their own abilities have been stolen from them by a political party that has sought to keep them down and in desperate need just to keep getting their votes.
I think it's an absolute tragedy.
I'm not being critical of these.
They don't know any better.
That's my whole point.
So you sit around and you wait for somebody else to do it, and you can sit around and wait and wait and wait, and eventually it will get done, but but not on a scale like this, uh, and not at a speed that'll be satisfactory uh to people.
Bob and uh Burt Lake in Michigan.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Good afternoon.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you, sir.
Uh, it was about five months ago that I was a male chaperone for a group of high school students in northern Michigan, a small Christian school.
We went down there and we spent two weeks in Long Beach, and it was interesting to see the positive nature of the people down there, the Christian organizations that were there helping.
Uh, and for thirteen days, that's what we saw.
But one day we went into New Orleans, and it was completely the opposite.
It was uh a fairly negative feeling as you went through the different areas that were damaged.
And what bothers me is we were told that uh Hurricane Katrina affected uh an area roughly 90,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of the British Isles, and you don't hear anything about the other areas, just the small area of New Orleans.
Well, I know there's uh but there are reasons for that.
Mississippi has a Republican governor, number one.
Uh uh number two, this just fit the template.
That the the liberal media and and drive-by media, liberal democrat template is Republicans or racists.
Here you have a disaster in a predominantly black city.
We were able to report this disaster and the horrors and everything that happened, and it was made to order.
Blame Bush for it.
Bush blew up the levies.
Bush doesn't care they died.
There are fewer Democrat voters now.
Bush doesn't care they left Louisiana.
It makes it a better opportunity to keep Louisiana as a Republican state.
Bush did all this.
It was a great opportunity for the left to further one of its baseless, mindless stereotypes.
Mississippi just didn't fit the bill.
It didn't fit the template, particularly with pictures.
Back in mere moment.
Thank you and welcome back.
Here we are in the uh Big Apple, high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, El Rushbo and the excellence in broadcasting network.
Well, it wasn't long ago, ladies and gentlemen, just to show you that I am show prep for the rest of the media, uh, which follows, wasn't long ago that I suggested after numerous media reports of just how quickly the Hesbos uh were rebuilding Southern uh Lebanon and they were passing out money, and everybody was happy, and they were rebuilding the roads and the schools and the hospitals and the air conditioning was getting turned back on.
I said, Man, these guys are that good, bring them over to New Orleans and have them standing by for the next disaster.
Here is a portion of Bob Schieffer's closing commentary yesterday on Slay the Nation.
...are on the streets of southern Lebanon handing out U.S. dollars to people whose homes were bombed out.
One year after Katrina, and we can't figure out how to get money to people who lost their homes in New Orleans.
We're still not sure if it can survive another hurricane, but a terrorist group has figured out how to get American money to the homeless in Lebanon.
Talk about threats to our national security.
How about a government so big, so complicated, and so unmanageable, it can't seem to get out of its own way anymore.
That's what scares me.
Really?
He says the federal government's entirely focused.
That may be the problem.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We'll get to that cut here in just a moment.
Uh did you catch what Bob Schaeffer said there at the end?
He said, talk about threats to our national security.
How about a government so big, so complicated, so unmanageable, it can't seem to get out of its own way anymore.
That's what scares me.
Bob.
Welcome home, buddy.
Welcome home.
I mean Bob's a big lib.
He's talking about the government being too big, exploited, unmanageable, can't get out of its own way.
He didn't say Bush has gotten too big.
He said the government's gotten too big.
He's on to something.
What you heard following that was George Will, who was um uh you know commenting on the Stephanopoulos show yesterday.
Stephanopoulos quite is that is that Peace Radio Goes Stephanopoulos says, George, uh Don Powell says the federal government's on the case in New Orleans, is that right?
He says the federal government's entirely focused.
That may be the problem.
Senator Landra says what we need are better systems.
We need fewer systems.
What you need to do is deregulate the place.
Get people out.
Try freedom.
Yes, try freedom.
Try freedom.
Deregulate too much red tape, too many it's it's it's it's a bureaucracy that is out of control, has been for a long time.
Can I once again share with you the real lesson of Hurricane Katrina?
The real lessons of Hurricane Katrina are these.
You had a failure of government at every level, state, local, and national.
But you also had a failure of citizenship.
Basic citizenship of people taking care of themselves, assuming responsibility for their own lives in circumstances like this.
There's no other way to look at it.
You also had this failure.
You had a city which, by all right, if the liberals are correct, should have been a utopia.
I mean, there should have been no crime.
There should have been no unhappiness.
There should have been no racism.
There should have been no unemployment.
There should have been equal opportunity.
People should have been running around New Orleans, happy as they could be.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed, and this is the truth, is that if liberals get their way, either in government or in running an entire community, they will destroy it.
The people of New Orleans who got hung up were unable, or unwilling, what have you, more likely unable to take care of themselves.
A liberal state government, a liberal local government had no clue what to do, none whatsoever.
A federal government that is so big and so bureaucratic, uh just couldn't mobilize quickly enough and couldn't organize things.
You've heard the stories about all the forms that have to be signed off on before X can happen or Y can happen.
And when those things become obstacles to speed and efficiency, when things get in the way, what the government do?
Uh here are these two thousand dollar debit cards, gang.
It is here, but pass these things out like they're uh candy.
And we saw what ended up being utilized or how they were utilized.
And what would you expect?
A lot of people don't have that much money at one time, tax-free in their possession ever.
Not in cash.
And so you got human nature on on parade.
Now the the drive-by media is trying to teach us the lesson that Bush didn't care, that the New Orleans uh disaster was a result of Bush's utter lack of concern.
He just didn't care because the city is Democrat, and besides the city is predominantly black, and Bush just didn't care.
And Bush just uh you know Bush ought to be celebrated by these people.
He has grown the government faster than they ever did.
He is he is expanded government in so many ways, if they were genuinely honest and truthful with themselves, they would have to sign on and love what Bush has done.
Because it's been exactly what they would do if they got the chance.
I think half of their anger is just the fact that Bush has done it and they haven't.
Mike, Redondo Beach, California, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hi, Rush.
Great to be on.
Thank you.
Hey, about the Armitage piece by Michael Isakoff.
Um, you know, it obviously killed Isack to have to clear the Bush inner circle of being the ones who first leaked Claims' identity because I don't know if you noticed this.
Near the end of the Newsweek piece, he still can't resist trashing the administration and Carl Rove and falling back to the media's template that the administration was out to smear Wilson.
He says officials at the White House also told reporters about Wilson's wife.
Carl Rove confirmed to Novak that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.
You know, Isaacov fails to mention that Novak says he's the one who initiated the call to Rove.
Rove didn't call him.
The initial subject matter was on some policy issue besides Iraq, and that Novak was the one who brought up Plaim's name as being the one who sent Wilson to Niger.
All Rove said was, oh, you heard that too.
Rove never even brought up Plaim's name.
But you know, Isaac has to fall back on the attack Bush template.
Uh all that's exactly true.
In fact, I I mentioned some of this in the first hour when I when I talked about this in this piece where Armitage is is uh confirmed now, which been a very poorly kept secret in Washington for some months now.
Um but when you read when you read the newsweek piece that that uh uh Mike here cites, the investigators knew almost immediately that it was Armitage.
Almost immediately.
It is it is disgusting.
When you when you look at this, Armitage confessed early on, but he never went public, and investigators and prosecutors thus continued their investigation.
That's the bottom line, and that's what's outrageous.
After they knew who did this, after they knew who leaked it to Bob Novak, they kept going.
On top of that, the independent counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald, he went public.
And he talked about how Libby endangered agents and so forth when he knew that Libby was not Novak's source.
But you're exactly right.
He can't get away from blaming Rove and Libby had to also say in this story that they were shopping the name around, that they were uh making the making the case, had to follow to follow through on the template, as you as you say.
Bottom line is, and you're exactly right, it was Novak who called Rove.
They were talking about something entirely different, and uh and Novak said, by the way, I've heard that uh Wilson's wife worked CIA.
Roves, Yeah, I think I've heard that too.
Uh this thing was a pointless investigation.
It was absolutely pointless.
It should have ended the moment they found out Armitage was the leaker and that Libby wasn't.
Uh and that that was way, way, way early on.
But you know, this grew a lot of it it attracted a lot of attention.
And I think the cult of celebrity can affect anybody.
Once you get a little taste of it, you want more.
You love your name in the papers, especially when it's with accolades.
You love your picture in the paper, especially when it's the best picture they can find of you.
You love the puff peace profiles, and the media had invested so much hope in Patrick Fitzgerald that they were encouraging him.
And then that they were doing these puff pieces, and they were they were actively uh uh promoting in his mind that he was important, a big guy, and he was uh get the kind of coverage he got, it it can become uh addictive in a way.
So the investigation goes on and on and on.
And after two years, you just can't say, well, I got nothing here.
Closing up shop.
Thanks for your time.
Nope, can't do that.
Can't make it look like you wasted your time, especially when you've known for sixteen of those months, or longer twenty of those months who the original leaker was.
And you also this is key too, by the way.
Everybody knows that Armitage did not leak Valerie Plame's name and identity to harm her.
If anything, he would have been on her side.
Armitage was in the Colonel Powell, Larry, I forget his name, the chief of staff to Powell in the uh in the State Department.
Larry Wilkerson, these guys hated this administration.
Armitage and Wilkerson, especially.
In fact, in the story, Isakoff writes that uh uh Armitage came back from a meeting over the White House with Cheney and and uh Rumsfeld and Bush.
Came back, got to the State Department, called up a bunch of jerks.
These guys have never faced a bullet whizzing by their head in anger, they don't know what combat's all about.
They can send people all over the world, these guys are just a bunch of jerks.
So the idea that Armitage is out there trying to further the administration's aim, which the drive-by media told us was going on here, oh yeah.
Administration is trying to destroy Joe Wilson.
Administration leaked his wife's name, it's all lies.
It's all BS.
None of it was true.
It's like the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.
None of it was true.
It was Armitage.
And Armitage didn't try to hurt anybody.
He was not on the Bush team's side.
He was not trying to harm Wilson.
This whole investigation was just pointless.
And now Libby is gonna have to spend, I don't know how many millions of dollars defending himself against a process crime when the when the investigators knew all along he was not the leaker.
But after two years they had to come up with something.
Especially off all his puff pee profiles and all the panting and anticipation.
Hoping and hoping and why they stranged Rove along so long a long why uh so long.
Why did they string Carl Rove on this invest when it was clear that if anything, they were trying to get Rove on a process crime, too, because Rove didn't leak anybody's name.
I don't care what Isakov says.
Um scary stuff.
This is criminal justice system.
It's really scary stuff.
Uh back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Back to the phones, Long Keith, Florida.
Nancy, nice to have you on the EIB network.
Welcome.
Hi, hi, Rosh, Megadetta.
Thank you.
First time caller, long time listener.
Wanted to um sum up what you said about the Steve Santani statement that they made when they were released yesterday.
Uh I just felt that it was very inappropriate.
Maybe they should have deprogrammed those guys.
Not that it would have changed the facts.
But uh once you renege on your face, I mean, what do you have left?
As you said.
Uh what do you mean once you ren well um the the let me let me restate that I don't know if that that the reneging was genuine.
That that was not That's exact that's exactly right.
Yeah, right.
Here's my point about it, uh just to restate it.
Everybody's saying that they're released unharmed.
I don't consider it to be unharmed when you have a pistol pointed at you or a gun and said you must renounce your faith and convert to ours.
Right.
Right.
Uh even if you just do it as a joke.
You can't say you're unharmed.
When somebody can say, well, they released unharmed, yeah, they had a lie about converting.
So what?
I don't think people of that mindset understand, and this doesn't surprise me a bit, by the way, and I know who these people are.
Doesn't they not understand real deep faith.
Yes, that's absolutely right.
Faith, uh your religious faith, your relationship with uh with God, that is that is the most in-depth personal relationship you have.
And to have somebody point a gun at you and to have you renounce that in order to live, there have been many people who've refused to do it, they've died.
Well, not that I have walked in their shoes, but you're absolutely right.
I mean, many people have died refusing to do just that.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Cintani should have don't misunderstand here, folks.
I'm just I I'm saying that there's a microcosm here of what is possible for all of us.
What happened to Centani and his cameraman is exactly what these people are promising to do to every infidel around.
Some people don't want to face that reality, they don't want to deal with it, they don't think it's remotely possible.
Come on, Rush, you're falling prey to a PR scam.
No, it's that was right out in front of us.
Uh Cintani said they were forced to uh re renounce their faith and and uh and do all this.
I I think it's a clear lesson of what we all face if we don't deal with this.
Uh and it's it's uh it's it's problem.
It's it's look, it's effervesc out there, and it's gonna continue to grow, and I I have no idea how long it's gonna be before we uh in unison rise up and say, okay, it's serious enough we have to deal with it.
I'm confident that that will uh that that'll happen.
The other thing about this that strikes me, as I said earlier, and if you're just tuning in, uh all throughout this hostage ordeal, Fox and other media were asking for everybody else in the media hey, don't make a big deal about it.
We want to solve this outside the glare of media covers.
We can have more success dealing with this internally and quietly than if you keep the cameras and everything blaring on this.
So do us a favor and don't do much about it.
And guess what?
They all cooperated and they didn't do much about it, so much so that people were were actually criticizing the media for not caring about a couple of Fox guys and saying, you know, if these are CNN people, whatever, but it'd be outraged and be demanding to know this and demanding to know that.
But the real truth is that uh uh what was established here is the way to deal with this is not with the media, but let anybody else other than a media person fall into those same circumstances and ask the media.
Ask the media to would you please get out of here and let us deal with this on our own time in our own way to meet it screw you, and they'll park TV cameras and trucks around your house.
Um a relative of yours dies in a hurricane or whatever, and they can't wait to get to your house to get your tears and your suffering and your grief on the air.
And in this circumstance, oh no.
And then when it was over and Cintani and the cameraman came out, they said, give us give us give us some time.
We we uh uh here's our statement.
We need to get what our families we uh, you know, uh renew acquaintances and so forth, okay, fine.
Let you or I in the same circumstance, ask the media to leave us alone.
Well, Robin Williams can get away with it.
When he asks for privacy, the media respects his privacy.
But there aren't very many other people, folks, that get away with it.
You ask for privacy and it just Whoo, what are they hiding?
Aha!
And the media numbers multiply.
So it's it's a lesson.
Sometimes the best way to get problem solved is not within sight of the media, no media bubble going on, this, that, and the other thing.
And that's that was the point that I was trying to make.
As to the renouncing of faith, when somebody's gonna say they were released unharmed, they were not unharmed.
They were tied up in painful positions, they were threatened at gunpoint.
That has a psychological effect on you, and who knows what that psychological effect is.
We don't know how many days the guns were pointed with the demands, renounce your faith or you're dead.
That there has to be a psychological impact of that.
Uh and uh it it should be dealt with privately before that it the people in that encounter that kind of thing are made to face people publicly.
Back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Hi, welcome back, folks.
Brace yourselves, final hour coming up.
We'll have some comments on the reaction to my take on Survivor's Race series uh coming up in September.
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