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Sept. 8, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:27
September 8, 2006, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, well, well, isn't this instructive?
Isn't this illustrative?
Isn't this interesting?
Now the Stalinists of the Democratic Party are threatening ABC's broadcast licenses over a movie.
What are they complaining about?
What does this actually tell us about them?
It's Open Line Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Oh, yes, my friends, the end of the week has arrived the beginning of the weekend.
The National Football League season kicked off last night.
The Pittsburgh Steelers, I just realized right after the show yesterday, I forgot to do the promised environmentalist wacko update or pick.
It was going to be the Steelers anyway, but what's the value in saying that after the fact?
At any rate, ladies and gentlemen, Open Line Friday, when we go to the phones, the program is all yours.
Telephone number, if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Well, in Variety, the trade paper variety, the movie and television industry newspaper, the possibility has been posed that Disney will totally scrap the movie, The Path to 911, that Iger is not happy with it and this may broom the whole thing.
I don't know if that'll happen, but I'll tell you what has happened here is so eye-opening and illustrative that I wish it were self-explanatory to a lot of people, but sadly, it probably isn't.
What happened yesterday is that the Senate Democrats, a bunch of the leadership in the Senate, sent Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, a threatening letter.
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a mob-like reaction from partisan hacks to intimidate an American broadcast network, and that network, ABC, is being intimidated.
The Communications Act of 1934, goes the letter from the Democrats, provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principal obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest.
Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events.
There's the threat.
There's the threat.
These guys are saying that their license could be under review if they produce something that Democrats don't like.
Now, what is it about this the Democrats don't like?
What in the world are they complaining about?
All this movie does is illustrate that there were numerous terrorist attacks throughout the 90s that never were dealt with in any serious fashion by the Clinton administration.
And by the way, the Bush administration doesn't get off any better here.
The idea that Bush is made to look good Bush and even in the movie, Connollies Rice is.
This is just, it's mystifying.
Well, no, wrong word.
It's not mystifying.
Here's what it illustrates.
It illustrates that the Democrats fear, deathly fear, the issue of national security becoming forefront in this campaign.
They deadly are afraid of it, deathly because they cannot compete against it.
They know the truth about themselves in this regard.
They know because of their actions and because of their words and because there are people like me and others who can go back in time and report and remind people of their words and actions, they can't win that debate.
They can't win any debate anyway.
All they can do is silence their critics.
All they can do is attempt to shut people up who've criticized them or discredit those who are critics of theirs rather than debate the issues.
It also shows that they are fully aware that they cannot get anywhere without accomplice-type assistance from those in the so-called mainstream media.
And so the full force of big government intimidation was put to paper yesterday.
Dingy Harry Reid and other Senate Democrats sent this letter off to Bob Iger.
There is one scene in the path to 9-11 that is, and by the way, folks, I'll tell you, you know, it's getting to the point now.
We need a docudrama on the docudrama.
We need a docudrama to see exactly how to dramatize just exactly how it is that Bill Clinton and his hacks in the Democratic Party have attempted to intimidate a major broadcast network, entertainment division.
Let them try this on the news division.
We need a docudrama of the docudrama to show how other media are sitting by and not saying a damn thing while one of their competitors, colleagues, whatever, is being threatened with its broadcast license.
We need a docudrama of the docudrama that illustrates exactly how big government is intimidating free speech in the entertainment community.
And we need to see how the representatives of big government, in this case, the Democrat Party, are acting.
We also need this, since everybody, Clinton, everybody else so concerned about the truth, all right, I'm up for that.
We need a docudrama on what happened to cause the genocide in Rwanda during the Clinton administration, for which he has apologized and gotten great credit.
I'm so sorry, I should have done more about that, you know.
Oh, he cares.
After that, we need a docudrama on Bill Clinton's approval of the aerospace firm Laurel, a big contributor to his campaign selling satellite technology to the communist Chinese.
And after that, we need a docudrama on the Red Chinese contributions to the Clinton Defense Fund and his reelection campaign.
And how about a docudrama on all the Lincoln bedroom sleepovers?
And by the way, when are we going to get the docudrama on Monica Lewinsky?
There are all kinds of docudramas just waiting to be made out of it.
You could have a whole docudrama on the Clinton presidency, but unfortunately, it would have to be written as a sitcom if it weren't so serious.
X-rated movie or what have you.
Now, the offending scene in this movie, as I have shared with you on previous occasions in this busy broadcast, shows an alliance, the Northern Alliance, Afghanistan Warriors, with CIA officials outside a compound in Afghanistan, inside of which is Osama bin Laden.
They are on the verge of capturing bin Laden.
They know what building he's in.
And all of a sudden, when the CIA agent on the ground, whose name in the movie is Mike, which is a composite, there's a composite figure here, on the phone with people at the National Security Council in a White House war room or whatever it is.
And in this scene, Albright, Madeline Albright, and Sandy Berger refuse to give authorization.
George Tenet refuses to give authorization.
And Berger hangs up on the CIA agent and they say, look, if you do this, you got to do it on your own.
As you're taking the heat if it doesn't work well.
If you kill bin Laden, we're not going to be saddled with an assassination charge.
We can't do it.
It's against the law.
If you kill any innocent civilians, there's going to be hell to pay.
So you don't have authorization to do this.
And so they backed out.
The Clinton people are saying this is totally fabricated.
Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, say it never happened, except the fact that the actual CIA agent named Mike says that it did.
His actual name is, and you've probably heard of this guy's name, and I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name because I've never watched with the sound up on TV, S-C-H-E-U-E-R.
Shire?
Scheuer?
Doesn't matter.
He's a 22-year veteran of the CIA who used to head up ALEC Station, A-L-E-C, the counterterrorist center's Osama bin Laden unit.
Now, just so you know, Michael Shire, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Michael.
I'm not trying to get it wrong.
Michael Shire is the individual regularly referred to in the 9-11 Commission report as Mike.
He has also written some books, Imperial Hubris, Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, and Through Our Enemy's Eyes, Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.
He is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and its prosecution of the war on terror.
He is also an opponent of the war in Iraq.
So the point that I am making to you here is that he is not a friend of the Bush administration.
Now, our buddies at newsbusters.org have a post up by Noel Shepard from yesterday.
Well, yesterday, I guess.
And Mr. Shepard says that after reading my piece about the smear campaign against ABC's docudrama, Shire apprised me of an op-ed he had written for the Washington Times on July 5th of this year.
Given its context to this issue, I wanted to share it with our readers, and we'll do so in its entirety in a moment.
And it's done so at the end of the piece here.
However, Mr. Shepard writes, before I do that, let me first share a more recent opinion offered by Shire as answers to some questions I asked of him in response to his first email message.
He says, is the scene in question, as depicted by Rush Limbaugh, an accurate account of the plan to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan?
If so, who do you believe gave the order to halt it?
And here is what Shire responded: who is the CIA agent Mike, composite figure, as portrayed in the movie.
He says, regarding the scene, it was never clear to my officers or myself who canceled the operation.
Well, right there, the lie is put to the lie that the Clinton administration says it never happened.
It did happen, and the agent on the ground says it was never clear to my officers or myself who canceled the operation.
It is true that Richard Clark was badmouthing it.
What I don't think people know, however, is that the agency had thoroughly reviewed the plan, CIA, and had approved its execution at the highest level.
That is, at the level of DCI Tennant and his immediate subordinates.
My officers and I were told that the plan had been sent to Richard Clark and the National Security Council for approval.
The next thing we knew, the chief of counterterrorism at CIA told us the plan had been canceled because civilians might get killed.
There wasn't a hundred percent chance that we would get bin Laden, and that if bin Laden was killed in the capture effort, the CIA might get accused of assassination.
The implication to us at the time was that the NSC, Richard Clark, and Berger and all these people sitting around the table, as in the movie, canceled the operation.
But Tenet later claimed that he did it himself.
I don't know what the full truth is on this issue.
Interestingly, after our East Africa embassies were bombed on 7 August of 98, Clark ordered us to immediately revive the capture plan.
But of course, by then the chance had been well and truly lost.
And these statements are affirmed somewhat in the 9-11 Commission report.
The 9-11 Commission report says, quote, Mike thought the capture plan was the perfect operation.
It required minimum infrastructure.
The plan had now been modified so that the tribals would keep bin Laden in a hiding place for up to a month before turning him over to the U.S., thereby increasing the chances of keeping the U.S. hand out of sight.
Mike trusted the information from the Afghan network.
It had been coordinated and corroborated by other means.
The lead CIA officer in the field, Gary Schrohn, also had confidence in the tribals.
In a May 6th cable to CIA headquarters, he pronounced their planning almost as professional and detailed as would be done by any U.S. military special operations unit.
The event happened.
It took place.
The 9-11 Commission report even says it did.
Shire thinks that the ultimate order came from the National Security Council, and that, ladies and gentlemen, happens to be how it is portrayed in the movie.
The question that I have, why in the world are we going to believe the Clinton administration?
And who says the 9-11 Commission is infallible?
The people that put this movie together.
Well, I shouldn't even have to say this.
The people that put this movie together probably have a whole bunch of sources telling them things.
And I'll bet you there is somebody out there who knows what really happened, and I'll bet they can't come forward.
I'll bet they can't come forward because of a whole bunch of propriety, security, anonymity, and this sort of thing.
Look, I have to take a quick time out here.
We will continue right after this on the EIB network.
Stay with us.
All right, back we are on Open Line Friday, El Rushball.
The posers are finished, and the real anchorman for the American people is on the air, serving humanity and getting the facts out there.
800-282-2882 is the number.
Now, here is Michael Shire's op-ed.
I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it's a read you some excerpts of his op-ed that was published in the Washington Times on July 5th of this year.
Let me read to you the open.
With one credible September 11 movie, United 93, under our belts, it'll be interesting to see whether the ABC-TV movie will complete the September 11 Commission's whitewashing of the pre-September 11th failure of U.S. intelligence community leaders in its forthcoming miniseries based on Richard Clark's memoir Against All Enemies.
Media teasers about the miniseries have said that Mr. Clark and a senior FBI officer, the late John O'Neill, will be the heroes of the saga, if true, and by the way they are.
If true, and if ABC's fact-checkers are not diligent in verifying Mr. Clark's stories and claims, the miniseries will be the September 11 Commission's dream come true.
The Bush administration will be blamed for September 11th.
The feckless moral cowardice of the Clinton administration will be disguised.
Well, Mr. Clark and Mr. O'Neill, in my view, two principal authors of 9-11, will be beatified.
Now, again, this is Michael Shire, and he is, he's a regular on hardball, I think.
One of Chris Matthews' favorite guests hates the Bush administration the way they're doing the war in Iraq.
So I don't want you to think we got a partisan hack writing here.
Mr. Clark's book, he continues, on the basis of my involvement to varying degrees in the issues it covers, is a mixture of fact, fiction, and cover-up.
Mr. Clark seems to get most names and dates right and is correct in damning the early Bush administration for obliviousness to the al-Qaeda threat.
We must also take him at his word on his touching, if sycophantic, tales of Mr. Clinton instructing a young boy to be good to his mom and Hillary Rodham Clinton's secluded moment praying on her knees.
But on the fantasy level, Mr. Clark lays it on thick.
His claim that the Clinton administration defeated an al-Qaeda attempt to dominate Bosnia is nonsense.
Bin Laden sent few fighters there because he had no contiguous safe haven for them.
Clark's claim that the CIA had taken months to tell the FBI several hijackers were in America is a lie.
FBI officers sat in the unit that I first commanded and then served in, and they read the same information I did.
If the data didn't get to FBI headquarters, it's because the FBI then lacked and still lacks a usable computer system.
The FBI did not know the September 11th hijackers were here because Judge Louis Free and Robert Mueller have failed to provide their officers computers that allow them to talk securely to their headquarters and other intelligence community elements.
About John O'Neill.
Mr. Clark's book is also a crucial complement to the 9-11 Commission's failure to condemn Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to ten chances afforded by CIA reporting.
I may read that to you again.
Mr. Clark's book is also a crucial complement to the 9-11 panel's failure to condemn Mr. Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to ten chances afforded by CIA reporting.
Mr. Clark never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before 9-11 and leaves the readers with the false impression that he, Clinton, and Sandy Berger did their best to end the bin Laden threat.
That trio, in my view, abetted al-Qaeda.
And if the 9-11 families were smart, they would focus on the dereliction, Bill Clinton, and Sandy Burglar, and not the antics of convicted 9-11 conspirator Zacharias Moussawi.
About John O'Neill, little needs to be said.
In my own experience, O'Neill was interested only in furthering his career and disguising the rank incompetence of senior FBI leaders.
Now, when you hear this, you got to understand there is a constant rivalry battle between the CIA and the FBI.
So you factor that in here.
He once told me and the FBI would oppose an operation to capture bin Laden and take him to a third country for incarceration.
When I asked why, he said, why should the FBI help to capture bin Laden if the Bureau won't get credit among Americans for his arrest and conviction?
So writes Mr. Shire, I look forward to ABC's miniseries as well as to seeing the quality of the network's fact checkers.
If they do their job well, some of the September 11th Commission's whitewash may start to be peeled away.
If they fail, however, the reality that Bill Clinton, Richard Clark, Sandy Bergler, helped to push Americans out of the windows of the World Trade Center on that morning will be buried in miles of fantasy-filled celluloid.
So if the plot thickens here, the event happened.
Shire has written of it three times and discussed it on air a number of times.
And it apparently, well, there's more here.
The clock is ticking away here, ladies and gentlemen.
Just noticed I thought I had a minute.
I misread the darn thing back here in an una momento.
Hey, man, a living legend and a way of life.
What were you two doing?
I look up from the golden EIB microphone.
Here come Snirdly and Dawn rushing back in like a couple of kids just late getting back to class from the bathroom.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
Great to have you with us.
You know, I'm not going to spend the whole show on this.
There's a lot of other things out there today.
I just got a couple more bits of information, a Dick Morris piece, and some more points to make.
But this is really, really, really Stalomist what's going on here.
You remember when Richard Nixon did this?
I don't know if you were paying attention long enough ago.
Richard Nixon was supposedly threatening broadcast license of news divisions that he didn't like.
But this makes Nixon ⁇ and there's a guy writing about this at the American Thinker today, one of our all-time favorite blogs.
Nixon was a piker.
They were vilified for this.
I mean, it was a piker compared to what's going on now.
How many of you people out there remember George W. Bush being referred to as a dictator?
He wants to violate everybody's freedoms.
He wants to violate civil rights.
He wants to violate human rights.
He wants to spy on you with the domestic spy program.
He's been called Hitler and so forth.
This mini-series, this docudrama criticized by sides.
The irony here, the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, both sides did not react the same way.
President Bush, who is labeled a near dictator, has not said a word about the program, hasn't asked for it to be killed, hasn't asked for it to be recut.
Former President Clinton, who we are always told is the greatest president since FDR, did do both those things.
He did call Iger last Friday, by the way.
He called Iger personally before this four-page letter that Bruce Lindsay actually wrote was mailed to Iger and Disney this week.
You know, these guys are beyond.
They are beyond description.
They really are.
Well, Blumenthal, you're getting me sidetracked.
Sidney Blumenthal ought to be covering his head in shame and embarrassment the things he wrote about Rove and others on the Valerie Plam business.
You want to talk about distorting history.
You want to talk about creating a lie and creating a myth.
How about that?
How about the whole thing?
Did you see Richard Armitage on KD's News last night?
Oh, my heart was bleeding.
Oh, he feels so terrible.
Richard Armitage feels so terrible.
Did you see it, Snerdley?
He's sitting there, Barbara said, just a typical, just a typical, somebody got to us and here's how you play it in the media.
Just tell about how bad you feel.
See, you feel sorry for your president.
You feel sorry for Secretary Powell.
You feel bad what your actions calls.
You know why he talked?
You know why he opened up last night?
Because Fitzgerald gave him permission to.
That's the only reason he was able to Fitzgerald gave him permission to, which is what the report said on the CBS Evening News last night.
Now, that's the end of the story.
Oh, he said he's sorry.
He has shown remorse.
It's over.
You will not hear another word about that story.
But if you want to think about a conspiracy to deny the truth and to present a lie, take a look at the willing accomplices in the Democratic Party, the criminal justice system, and the drive-by media.
And now you've got these Stalinists in the Democratic Party threatening ABC's broadcast licenses.
By the way, as a network, they do not have a broadcast license.
The owned and operated stations have licenses.
And so they could go after ABC's owned and operated stations licenses, and those are huge profit centers, ladies and gentlemen, those TV stations that they own.
You know, they spend nothing producing local news.
Just put a camera in an intersection, record a wreck, put a camera in a poor part of town, report a robbery, and that you've got your local news.
And so it doesn't cost much.
Those are just huge profit centers.
I got an idea for these guys.
Here's a better way to handle this.
Leave the movie uncut, Mr. President.
And then when the scene goes by that you don't like, have ABC run a graphic, this scene not approved by Bill Clinton.
And when a scene goes by that you do like, have it say this scene approved by Bill Clinton so that every scene in a movie gets Clinton's stamp of approval or disapproval.
And then let Madeline Albright have the same privilege.
This scene never happened, says Madeline Albright.
And then let Sandy Burglar get in on the action, too.
This scene questioned by Sandy Burgler.
I mean, because that's what it appears is going on.
Whatever complaints these guys have, they are being addressed to one extent or another.
Now, here's Greg Richards at theAmericanThinker.com.
Senators Reed, Durbin, Stabenow, Schumer, and Dorgan sent a letter to Disney today containing the following passages.
And I have read you the passages, and you know what they are now.
They're threatening the broadcast license.
Nixon was a piker.
This is a threat far more direct than ever made by the Nixon administration on the TV licenses of the Washington Post about which so much was made in the Watergate affair.
But it is just business as usual for the party that thinks they can do what they want without consequence.
If this had been issued by the Nixon administration, we would still be reading about it in the history books as the next to last step of a fascist takeover of the republic.
And that is right on, and this is close to what this is.
But you have to understand again what this represents.
It represents the flimsy foundation on which the Clinton legacy is built and constructed, and it cannot withstand a five-hour movie.
Number two, it shows the utter fear and paranoia and panic of a Democratic party that cannot, sorry for the faux pas.
I actually, did I say that?
Did you hear me?
You're not sure.
All right, good.
A Democratic Party who cannot stand for the primary issue of this campaign to be national security.
They can't afford it.
That's what scares these Democrats.
I don't know that it's so much loyalty to Clinton.
That's what scares the Democrats.
They just can't bear for this to happen.
They have succeeded in whitewashing 9-11.
It was only one episode, and it's a long time ago.
And we're not safe because Bush has botched the recovery and the retaliation for it.
But they cannot.
They cannot, as a caller said yesterday, they cannot dare allow this movie to present the real enemy, Al-Qaeda Islamofascists.
Dick Morris writes about this today at Newsmax.
The attack by Clinton and his allies on the path to 9-11 is outrageous, charges Dick Morris.
As Newsmax has reported, Clinton, through his surrogates, have demanded ABC correct all errors in the docudrama or pull it from the air.
But Morris claims that Clinton's national security advisor, Sandy Bergler, and the president himself were both responsible for failing to catch or kill Osama bin Laden on several different occasions.
As claims former CIA agent Michael Scheier, Morris served Clinton as an advisor for 20 years and notably as Clinton's senior campaign strategist in 1996.
Morris states that the evidence for this failure is documented in the 9-11 Commission's report and summarized in Because He Could, the book about Clinton that Morris co-authored with his wife Eileen McGann.
At any rate, the report's account shows the president and his advisors at their worst.
One time, U.S. canceled an attempt to kidnap bin Laden out of concern we might injure or kill him and be accused of using assassination policy as a policy tool, Morris said.
The president had yet to make a finding it was okay to kill bin Laden.
The reason he had not is that he did not yet know bin Laden's connection to the 93 World Trade Center bombing, and the reason he didn't know is because he didn't fast-track the investigation.
A second time, we did fire missiles, but alerted the Pakistani military to our plans and tipped off bin Laden.
They tipped off bin Laden and he escaped.
Now, this is another controversial issue and scene in the movie.
According to the Commission's report, the U.S. alerted Pakistan because the missiles targeting bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan, had to cross Pakistan, and U.S. officials didn't want Pakistan to think the missiles had came from India.
A third time, our plan to attack by missile were canceled, partially out of chagrin over having missed him before, and partly because we had just bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by mistake, and we were worried about being called trigger happy.
Numerous attempts to get bin Laden, and the Clinton administration always found a reason not to do it.
This scene that Madeline Albright doesn't like, we are going to launch the missiles into the terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
They got to cross Pakistani airspace to get there, and somebody had to alert the Pakistanis.
And they, Pakistanis, somebody there then alerted bin Laden, and he escaped.
Excaped, for those of you in Riolinda.
The movie says that it is Madeline Albright that does this, that alerts the Pakistanis.
And Madeline Albright in the movie says that we have to do this because the president's intense negotiations with the Palestinians and the Israelis on a Middle East peace plan, we have to do this.
Albright says, I didn't make the call.
Somebody else made the call.
The event happened.
The event happened, just like the contested scene about the near capture of bin Laden.
It happened.
And this is a docudrama.
And the Clinton administration was an utter failure.
And they can't stand for any light to be shown and cast on that failure.
It is, as I say, it's illustrative of who they are, how flimsy and feeble their legacy is, how teetering on lies and spin their legacy is.
The Democrats are just plain panicked and fearful over the notion that national security is kind of an issue in the campaign.
They know they can't possibly win on that basis.
Speaking of that, Washington, D.C. at this moment is probably going nuts.
A two-year investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee has been concluded.
Report issued today.
The essence of the report is that there's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda associates.
Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.
The declassified document being released by the Senate Intelligence Committee explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, had in the march to war.
The long-awaited report said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat Michigan member of the committee, is a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading, and deceptive attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaeda.
They have never done that.
They never linked Saddam to 9-11.
Zarqawi was in Iraq before we went to 9-11.
Al-Qaeda was there.
It's not if it's not in dispute.
This report says that Zarqawi and his presence were not known by Saddam.
All of this is irrelevant.
The Democrats want to refight the issue of the 2004 presidential race.
Going to Iraq was a mistake and that Clinton or that Bush and the CIA manipulated intelligence along with Cheney in order to go to war in Iraq.
They can't let it go.
Now they can't let it go and they want to refight the same thing.
This is an irrelevant report.
But the Democrats are screaming.
They're happy.
My God, we can something and cover up the 9-11 movie.
This is super.
See, Bush lied, Bush lied.
We've been telling you all along.
Bush lied, Bush lied.
We don't need to be in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda was not.
Well, the fact of the matter is, we are there.
And what's going on there is going on there.
And refighting decisions two and three years ago is absolutely pointless.
And Democrats continue to look backwards.
And this is why they are untrustworthy with this nation's national security.
Quick timeout, back with more in just a second.
Okay, back we are, Rush Limborg, cutting-edge societal evolution to the phones we go.
We'll start with Chuck in Columbus, Ohio.
Hi, Chuck.
Nice to have you with us.
Rush, thank you for taking my call.
Thank you for what you do.
I just wanted to let you know, I don't think I've tuned into a network news broadcast in the evening.
It's been so long I can't remember when it may have been when Walter Cronkite retired.
But I tuned in last night specifically to see you.
And I just wanted to tell you, I thought you hit a home run and hit it out of the park.
And just an added comment, you come across much friendlier visually than you do on audio.
Much friendlier visually than I do on audio.
Yeah, you look like really the nice guy that you are.
Hmm.
You were smiling.
But that makes me think that I sound like a mean guy here on radio.
Well, sometimes you get going on a tear, but I think we all appreciate your passion for you.
Of course, I think people mistake passion for intimidating tactics and so forth.
Well, look, you know, it's amazing.
I am fascinated by people's reactions to me on TV.
You know, when I did my television show, it was unnerving in a number of ways because after every show, if I thought I did a great job, invariably the public reaction was, yeah, you should have said this, so why didn't you add that?
And plus, your tie didn't look good.
It's so much different there because, you know, TV has you're using your sight and your ears.
Radio, you're only using your ears and your mental, you know, your brain paints mental picture with the help of a talented host.
And so I've gotten some messages from people like, boy, you really look good.
You looked really mild and so forth.
It sounds like what you're saying.
I thought you were great.
Can I ask you a football question?
Sure.
Well, I'm calling from Columbus, Ohio.
My son's name is Woody, so go Bucks.
But who's your pick for tomorrow night?
You've got to go Ohio State.
You have to go Ohio State.
I'd probably pick Ohio State even if the two Texas players haven't been suspended.
That's going to be tough.
I mean, you're going into Lions Den.
You're on the road.
It's going to be tough.
I hope it's a good game.
Oh, it should be a great game.
Well, you think I'm going to pick Texas with you on the phone after you've complimented me so well here?
I'm sorry.
Isaiah, you think I'm going to pick Texas to you while you're on the phone from Columbus?
And you've just been very nice to me?
Well, thank you.
And listen, keep up the good work.
I will do.
Thank you.
Snurdley has just asked me when I start following college football.
I always follow big college games, and this is a big game, like the ball games.
But this is a game between the number one and number two teams in the country.
And there's some controversy about the game because two of the Texas stars have been suspended by a coach for weapons and drug stuff driving around in a car.
Yeah, just usual athletic stuff, no big deal.
And there's also controversy because the coach, USA Today, has a coach's poll to determine who's number one and number two.
And a coach at Ohio State, Jim Trussell, went on a press conference.
Yeah, I voted Texas number one.
They're clearly the number one team.
He didn't.
He voted Ohio State number one.
Now, the excuse is, well, I actually didn't do that.
I told my athletic assistant or whatever to make the phone call, which is permitted, and do that.
There was some confusion along the way.
So listen, plus, it's a primetime game on Saturday night.
You know, it's Notre Dame Penn State tomorrow afternoon.
That's pretty good.
Plus, snurdly, when you have high definition.
Oh, wait, I won't have high definition.
I'll be in a hotel.
Oh, damn.
Here's another great scene in the path to 9-11.
The ambassador to Yemen, whose name was Barbara Bodine.
She's portrayed by Patricia Heaton in this movie, Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond.
And she basically prevents O'Neill from doing anything to uncover the Yemenis who might have blown up the USS Cole because she was more concerned about the effect on the Yemeni people.
They didn't want them thinking badly of the United States.
She has an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times here denying this today.
The relevant parts of it here will come up after the break at the top of the hour.
This is, look at folks, I'm a harmless, loveable little fuzzball.
Well, the winter on radio or TV.
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