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Dec. 3, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:36
December 3, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #3
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And on the premise that nine hours of fill-in hosts is enough for any week, let us come together and hope for a healthy return of Rush tomorrow.
Every indication is that's going to happen.
So let's hope for that.
Meanwhile, it was fun to listen to Jason yesterday.
I enjoyed Monday and I'm really enjoying today.
So let's continue the enjoyment for one more hour and then let's see if we can get Rush back healthy in the chair tomorrow for a Thursday show.
All right, coming up in a few minutes, something I mentioned at the beginning of the show, I said, let's save this for middle of the show, third hour or something like this.
What do John Rocker and the Dixie Chicks have in common?
Getting in trouble for opening their mouths and then having people rush in and falsely say that there was a free speech issue at play there.
Wasn't true in the Dixie Chicks, wasn't true with John Rocker, and it's not true with the latest example, which is a far less wattage than either the famous pitcher or the infamous country trio.
This involves a Dallas Stars hockey player, and it was half of my local show here in Dallas-Fort Worth on WBAP this morning.
The reason I bring it to you is I've got the actual audio, which is just interesting.
And it's about getting in trouble.
He's been indefinitely suspended by the NHL for something he said, and you won't believe what it was about.
It involved the invocation in an unflattering way of about a former girlfriend, a famous former girlfriend, currently dating a member of the team the stars played last night, the Calgary Flames.
If your head is already hurting, I will lay this all out for you.
Play the audio.
My goal is to ask you, it's always interesting to sort of take, just have a barometer of actions and consequences.
What is fair?
What is unfair?
Does the punishment fit the crime?
Whether it's something someone says or does in politics, in music, in Hollywood, in sports, whatever.
And this is just an example that's really different.
And so I'll have that for you here in just a couple of minutes.
I just wanted to open this hour in proper talk show form with just a couple of meaty talk show issues.
Looking through some of the articles of the day, how uncomfortable will it be at times for President Obama to be lording over an agency he once trashed?
This, of course, would be the CIA.
New York Times, and it's funny, I mean, it is the New York Times, so approach with caution.
But Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane have a pretty darn good article titled, After Sharp Words on CIA, Obama Faces a Delicate Task.
Masters of Understatement, the headline writers there at the New York Times.
They write, for two years on the presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama rallied crowds with strongly worded critiques of the Bush administration's most controversial counterterrorism programs, from hiding terror suspects in secret CIA jails to questioning them with methods he denounced as torture.
Now, Mr. Obama must take charge of the CIA in what is already proving to be one of the more treacherous patches of his transition to the White House.
Last week, John O'Brenn, a CIA veteran who is widely seen as Mr. Obama's likeliest choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal critics attacked, excuse me, his alleged role in the agency's detention and interrogation program.
Mr. Brennan protested that he had been a strong opponent within the agency of harsh interrogation tactics, yet Mr. Obama evidently decided that nominating Mr. Brennan was not worth a battle with some of his most ardent supporters on the left.
Mark Lowenfall, an intelligence veteran who left a senior post at the CIA in 2005, said Mr. Obama's decision to exclude Mr. Brennan from contention for the top job sent a message: If you worked in the CIA during the war on terror, you are tainted.
He says it's created anxiety in the ranks of the agency's clandestine service.
Once again, for the 10th time, do you think?
And speaking of thinking, shouldn't people have thought about this before voting for the man?
You know, and I've so many people, well, I want to be liked around the world.
That's great.
Well, I want to have unity in the country.
Right, as if any president does that.
Sometimes you've got to put away the puffery, put away the platitudes, and actually look at what a presidency will do.
And despite all of these ridiculous assertions, and a guy I respect, Michael Gerson, has a piece in the Washington Post today: closet centrist in Obama's cabinet, the audacity of moderation.
Mike, Mike, can we wait for them to actually do something, please?
Can we wait for them to actually do something?
I mean, President Bush surrounded himself with a bunch of people that made it look like he was going to be a pretty hardcore conservative president.
Uh-uh.
Wasn't.
So, this notion of taking, I mean, he was in some ways, not in others on the day in which we examine the Bush legacy, but this notion of looking at the transition and starting to make broad assertions about what kind of heart beats in the president-elect's chest and what kind of brain ticks in his head.
Please, it'll take a lot more than the retention of Bob Gates for me to assert that Barack Obama is anything other than the hardcore liberal that he's been his entire life.
It is pragmatism, not centrism, that leads him to prevent nominating Bill Ayers for education secretary, Jeremiah Wright for attorney general.
I'm half kidding about that, but only half.
Come on, he wants to be liked, he wants his opening time to be smooth.
He'd like to not lose the war.
That's not centrism, that's pragmatism.
So it's just crazy.
But anyway, in the midst of all of this, did you not, to all of you who are Obama voters, and I have to give many of you credit, I think most of you who voted for Senator Obama knew full well that he reviled the interrogation tactics that have kept your family safe.
I know, sorry, I know full, well, not sorry, I know full well that you knew full well that Barack Obama absolutely holds in disregard the Patriot Act that has prevented other 9-11s.
You knew it.
You knew it.
At least you're not on the phone to me saying, wow, I voted for Barack Obama.
I had no idea that he was, that things would be tense between him and the CIA.
What?
He characterized the CIA as a cousin of the Third Reich.
My words, not his.
So if there's anything that is just tickling the living daylights out of me, it is these realizations now that President-elect Obama is president-elect Obama, that his actual views are coming into conflict with some of the things that have kept us safe.
Wow, maybe we don't need to release all those animals at Guantanamo.
Whoa, where will we put all those people who would kill you where you stand if they had the chance?
Been there, seen it.
Not actual death, been to Guantanamo.
Guantanamo is holy ground to me.
Guantanamo is holy ground.
It is where the war on terror is fought in our hemisphere every day.
God bless everything that every member of our armed forces is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else.
But there will always be a particularly special place in my heart, and you better carve one out in yours for the men and women of our armed forces who are fighting the war on terror by detaining these creatures plucked from the field of battle and keeping them at Guantanamo.
May God bless every single one of them.
And anyone thinking of closing that place is a fool.
So, as we get ready to go to your calls, 1-800-282-2882.
That's right.
That's all the time we have.
Tip your waitresses.
Thanks a lot.
Welcome back, Rush.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Mark Davis.
Let's see here.
All right.
Let's do this.
Here's what I'm going to do.
It seems like an annoying tease, but it's not.
I just think it keeps us coherent and keeps us on a kind of a linear path.
I'm going to go ahead and take our first pause, come back, take a little pastle of your calls here on some of these larger political issues.
And then before the bottom of the hour, I promise, before the bottom of the hour, the big mouth of a hockey player lands him in trouble.
Does he deserve it?
Okay?
Good?
Good.
Got a plan.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Mark Davis, Infor Rush.
Rush should be back tomorrow, and you and I will be back in just a couple of minutes.
Oh, don't tease me with Paul Rogers, greatness of bad company.
And for those of you with some iTunes time on your hands, what is Paul Rogers doing these days?
The answer, making records with Queen.
Now, there is an actual, boy, you know what?
Being your full service show, I will throw you down a 30-second snippet of some of that in the next segment.
God, can I keep all these promises?
But seriously, it's Queen and Paul Rogers, and it's great, but there's an observation that I'll make, and we'll save that here for our next segment.
All right, calls is what I promised you first, so let's do that and let's begin in New York City.
Ralph Mark Davis, filling in for Rush, and it's a pleasure to have you.
Hello.
Mark, you touched on something, part of me, very close to my heart.
You know, the nationalistic pride that we've lost in this country.
You know, you put it in the way we want to be liked.
And I'll tell you this: that is a detriment.
That is actually dangerous in these dangerous times.
You know, there's pockets in the country that are still, that you can still go down a street and see the line of flags on Veterans Day.
But I'll tell you, where I live here, and I feel a bit out of place, but I'm an actor and I have to live here.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here otherwise.
But I'll tell you, the talk that goes on about just being liked in the world and being thought of in a different light now that we have the savior Obama as our president, it drives me insane.
And I really hope that we understand the fact that we're a great nation and we're alone somewhat in this world in a sense, and that we have to feel that way about ourselves.
I don't want to be like Europe.
I don't know about you, Mark.
I love this country.
If I want to go to Europe, I'll go to Europe.
I mean, I'll go to Italy and hang with all of you.
And France is really a very pleasant place to be.
But I don't want to be like those societies.
And when the Michael Moores of this world blister Americans suggest that we really ought to be doing things the way France is, have you paid those taxes?
Have you seen those levels of productivity?
And I'll never paint America as without flaw.
We have plenty of warts and blemishes.
But I lament, and Ralph, thank you enormously.
I so appreciate it.
For making a point that's probably not made enough in our children's school classrooms and is probably not spoken enough around the dinner table, that ours is a singularly great nation that has aspired to things that few, if any, other societies have ever aspired to.
And even when America wanders astray, which it will do, or has leaders that are less than great, which we will elect, we still remain an incredibly special nation that deserves a lot better than the back of the hand of the world and of elites in our own country.
God love you, Ralph.
Thank you.
Huge success.
I hope the acting thing scores big for you.
We are in.
Let's head to the Florida Panhandle and Pensacola John.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
Welcome, sir.
Howdy, how are you doing?
Good.
I wanted to weigh in on your discussion of Bush's legacy.
I like the man.
I like what he's done.
I don't think he gets a whole lot of credit.
The thing that I believe is going to hurt him in the history books is that he's taken the stance that the office of the presidency is above the fray and he doesn't have to address his critics when they have less than, I say, nice comments about him.
When they sink below the floorboard and spew some vitriol, he just lets it roll off his back and go away.
I think that doesn't go off.
Listen, let me just give it right back to you at the next level.
You have brought up something that is genius.
I've thought about this the entire Bush presidency.
Let's put it under the microscope right now.
What would that have looked like if President Bush had been as combative, as in your face, as instantly responsive to the venom spewed at him as you would like?
Where and when and what would that have looked like?
I don't want him to sink to their level or be instantly combative.
I don't believe he has to sink to their level to address their criticism.
I think there were a number of senior political leaders from the Senate and the House who had press conferences in the morning calling him Hitler or Pol Pot or many other well-documented, over-the-top comments.
And then they have press meetings and photo ops with the president in the afternoon over lunch.
Yeah.
It's a golden question for the ages.
Would Bush have fared better if every once in a while, not to the low and craven level that his critics often went, but just to essentially say, when Senator Kennedy this morning spoke of Abu Ghraib and raised it to the level of discourse in which he referred to us in ways that one would usually refer to the Third Reich, that should be offensive to every American.
When Harry Reid stepped forward this morning, if he would have said on that day, and said the war is lost, how dare he say that with American troops still in the field?
Yeah, I share your thought.
I would have tingled with pride had he done that.
I will tell you this, though, wouldn't have changed a thing.
I don't think it would have changed a thing about his favorability ratings.
He would have then been pilloried as nasty and combative and short-tempered.
I bet you.
Doesn't mean it would have been a good thing to do.
It probably would have been a good thing to do.
He was simply, he was mannerly and gracious to people who don't know the meaning of those words.
The problem he did in that same vein is he did not support his senior political support in Washington.
Let's take the poster child, Scooter Libby.
He was attacked for what many people believe is political reasons.
He was investigated and he was not guilty of the underlying charge.
He was convicted of having one of three versions of a meeting that was six months old.
I mean, that's a perfect opportunity for the president to stand up and fight.
You got it, but boy, do you need to choose your battles?
First of all, nothing would please me more than a scooter libby pardon around noon on January 19th.
I think that would be a magnificent shiv in the ribs to his attackers.
I would have, if, if, if President Bush were going to really fight back, I would have liked for him to fight back on the really, really big, big stuff.
I mean, that was big.
In fact, on that very same issue, let's roll it back.
Let's have him slap Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame around a little bit.
These war haters who took their lives to the New York Times in Joe Wilson's case and to her nasty little book in Valerie's case and clearly went on a mission ostensibly for the United States of America, but was clearly designed to feather their political nest.
I would have enjoyed some of that.
We can be wistful about all of that, but I appreciate you bringing it up.
I truly do.
All righty, we are in Chicago.
Art.
Hey, Mark Davis, in for Rush Limbaugh.
How are you?
Mark, doing a great job.
I just wanted to tie maybe this thing of Bush also in with your earlier comments on David Gregory.
New host of Meet the Press.
I don't believe that David Gregory would make a good Meet the Press person.
See, I'm as one that never worshiped at the altar of Tim Russert, Chartman.
Chartman became popular during the core Bush elections by bringing out his charts and coming across as a likable sort of a guy.
David Gregory is not a likable kind of a guy.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Bush, President Bush, would have been very appropriate if he would have had the sergeant-at-arms at one of his press conferences take David Gregory and throw him out of the press corps.
So well, then let's, then seriously, if no one short of Karl Rove would have been satisfactory for you, I can understand your disappointment.
I'm just going to wait and see what the guy does.
Russert proved that you can put your own ideology aside for enough time to be an equal opportunity tormentor.
And if Dave Gregory does that, then I'll be glad because it's probably the best we can hope for.
I mean, you're not going to get Newt Gingrich as the host of Meet the Press.
It's kind of like the Obama presidency.
David Gregory takes the reins of Meet the Press.
Let's see what he does and judge him by what he actually does.
Oh, good Lord.
And the NHL quote comes, I promise, on a stack of NHL manuals right after this on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
The success of the Rush Limbaugh show is a litany of things large and small.
The unparalleled talent of your usual host, Rush Limbaugh, his manner, his persona, the incredible affiliate list, large things like that.
And then little things like the good folks like Kit Emmanuel Carson at the call screening and chief of staff Helm and broadcast engineer Mike Mamone.
Knowing that I invoked Queen throws down a little, another one bites the dust.
So you are a mere seconds away from the incendiary NHL audio I mentioned.
But what does this strike you as?
I mentioned that Paul Rogers, lead vocalist for Bad Company, he toured with Queen, which worked out very nicely.
And now they have made an actual album together.
It's called Queen and Paul Rogers.
Actually, it's Queen plus Paul Rogers, like Mike plus the mechanics some years ago.
The album is called The Cosmos Rocks, which is a huge subject verb agreement problem.
But there's another issue.
First of all, if Brian May and Roger Taylor and they want to go hang out with Paul Rogers, I'm all about that because Queen and Bad Company was half of my eight-track collection in 1974.
But the first thing that occurs to you when you fire this thing up, you're told it's a queen album with Paul Rogers doing lead vocals, right?
Well, here's like 15 seconds of a thing called Time to Shine.
Two things occur to you.
First, Paul Rogers can still sing.
God love him.
And the second thing that occurs to you is it's a bad company album.
And I know it's horribly unfair, but the bottom line is if Paul Rogers is doing lead vocals for you, it's a bad company album.
And I guess, you know, Bosborrell and Mick Ralphs and everybody else are sitting at home going, well, I'm not getting any checks for this.
But it's really good.
But if you're sitting there thinking that it's going to sound like a queen album, it's not.
Queen sounded like Queen, certainly because of the guitar mastery of Brian May and all of that, and that's great.
But Freddie Mercury is what made Queen sound like Queen, and he's not exactly available.
So it's lovely.
It's great.
Run, grab it if you want to.
But Queen and Paul Rogers, that's a bad company album.
Okay, now turning to other things of seeming irrelevancy, but I did promise that I would do.
Let me lay the groundwork for you.
And this should be interesting.
At least, boy, I hope so.
With the two and a half hours of anticipation that I have put you through.
This is one of those examples of guy opens mouth, gets in trouble.
Did he deserve the trouble he got into?
The Dallas Stars have a pretty new guy playing forward for their NHL team.
His name is Sean Avery, and he used to be with the LA Kings and some other teams.
And the general book on this guy is that he's just a complete jerk.
But sometimes you want that on especially your NHL team, because if he can be aggressive and mouthy, maybe that's intimidating and it helps you win a game or two, and that's all lovely.
And many of the really aggressive, jerky, mouth-y athletes are revered and admired in their hometowns because they help the home team win.
Well, until Sean Avery brings us another Stanley Cup in Dallas, he does not enjoy that love.
Doesn't even enjoy it in the locker room, apparently, because not one of his teammates has come to bat for him in this event, which is barely 24 hours old.
The Dallas Stars were in Calgary up in Alberta to play the Flames last evening.
They actually won, which we're pleased about here in Texas.
Here's the story.
Are you aware, either through watching 24 or a couple of movies she's been in of the absolutely stunningly pretty actress Alicia Cuthbert?
She used to date Sean Avery.
Used to date Sean Avery.
She currently dates, apparently she making her way through the NHL.
She currently dates Calgary Flames defenseman Deion Fenuff.
So the stars are in Calgary to play the Flames.
In a clearly premeditated moment that he must have thought was clever as the day is long, Sean Avery comes off the ice after the morning practice skate, finds a little gaggle of reporters, and offers the following observation in view of the fact that a member of the opposing team, Deion Fenuff of Calgary, is currently dating Alicia Cuthbert, whom he used to date.
I just wanted to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds.
I don't know what that's about.
Well, I'll tell you what, it's a boot there, Sean.
Sloppy Seconds did not go over well.
Understandably so, right?
That is a really, really ungallant, borderline, misogynistic thing to throw down about a woman that's so dismissive and just, it's just bad.
Are we in agreement on that?
But is this the stuff of suspension?
Tom Hicks owns the Dallas Stars and says if the NHL had not suspended him, I would have.
The National Hockey League has indefinitely suspended Sean Avery.
Now let's take a look at that.
An indefinite suspension simply means we don't know how long it's going to be.
I trust it's not going to be that long, and it shouldn't be that long.
But as far as it goes, I'm on board for this.
I'm good with it.
Now, the first thing that I said this morning on my local show, half of which was taken up with this, was, isn't this, especially on a show where we've talked a lot about multiple standards?
In the NBA, some of these players have a child, a love child in every time zone.
In the NHL, we got players shooting themselves with unlawfully possessed handguns in bars.
We got other, that's Plaxico Burris of the Giants.
Here in Cowboyland, the freshly reinstated Pac-Man Jones as we head to Russia's favorite team up there in Pittsburgh.
Can't wait for that game.
I'm sure he'll regale you with stories of how he got into a drunken brawl with a Cowboys security guy, and that got him suspended.
You can go back from Ray Lewis, who may or may not have had who knows what to do with a murder.
You have Steve Howe, who I think at one point was snorting lines of cocaine off the third baseline at Yankee Stadium.
There is so much athlete misbehavior that you can chronicle.
This guy gets a suspension for this?
The answer is, yes, he does, and I'm glad.
Now, I'm going to look for him to return in five or 10 games, you know, ish.
But that said, good for the National Hockey League.
And if they come across looking like choir boys, good for them.
Good for them.
Maybe this creates a baseline, a different place to set the bar.
And I don't want to get wrapped up in nostalgia syndrome where we sometimes look through the haze of memory too favorably.
But I seem to remember a day where, you know, out-of-wedlock children or cruel public comments or firearms violations, any one of those would have gotten you kicked off a team, period.
And if that pendulum is starting to swing back, where there is less and less tolerance for either outright criminal behavior or even outright stupid public behavior, then I'm all about luring that pendulum back.
Let me add one thing before we start to take calls on this.
You have to take into account not just the pretty shocking nature of Sean throwing down sloppy seconds as a reference to the old girlfriend there, Alicia Cuthbert, but knowing that she was dating a current Calgary Flame, team essentially said, Sean, do us a favor, don't go there.
Don't get in front of any reporter and talk any smack about having dated Alicia Cuthbert, who's currently dating Deion.
Just don't do that.
So it was, if nothing else, rank insubordination.
So there we are.
Now, that's not all we need to do as we progress, but it's another thing we can do.
And in Frankfurt, Indiana, let's go say hi to Dave.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show, sir.
Mark Davis filling in.
How are you?
Just fine, sir.
I totally agree with you on this.
I would just hate to see the NHL degenerate to 25% of the news or being like the NFL or the NBA, where it's more of a circus off the field than it is in the arena.
Yep.
And I don't think we're getting, I don't think NHL players are going to start NFL and NBA style misbehavior.
I just don't think it's part of their makeup.
I totally agree, but there's the old adage of you let the camel's nose under the tent.
Pretty soon the camel offs the tent.
This does.
If this strikes anyone as unduly harsh, there may be a reason for that because I got some emails and some calls today from people who said that it's possible to show disdain for this.
It's possible to show, it's possible for the stars or the NHL to have disciplined him.
Just a strong letter in the file or sitting down and a good butt-chewing from Coach Dave Tippett or NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to say, are you stupid?
Please don't do it.
We told you not to do that.
Please don't embarrass us like that again.
And then walk away and be done with it.
That could have been done too.
But you know what this does?
Puts it in the news.
Hey, it's on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
And thus, the world now knows that the NHL will not suffer fools gladly and will not tolerate people saying things that attract negative attention, that bring disfavor on their organization.
And God bless them.
Amen.
All righty, man.
There's just stunned by my brilliance.
No, thank you, man.
I appreciate it very, very much.
You may disagree.
And if so, hop on board.
We'll move you up in line.
1-800-282-2882.
And we got like 17 minutes to show left, and we can do plenty of other things too.
So anything you like.
It's the final hour, hopefully the final hour of fill-in hosts this week for the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Rush will be back tomorrow.
That's the hope.
Fingers crossed.
I hope you're feeling better there, sir.
And we'll all be back on the EIB Network in just a moment.
It is the Rush Limbaugh Show on this Wednesday, December 3rd.
Mark Davis filling in at WBAP Dallas, Fort Worth.
The plan is for Rush to return tomorrow.
That plan involves him healing up the rest of the way from a really nasty upper respiratory thing of some kind.
So here's to hoping that happens so we can all drive around together and listen to Rush tomorrow.
Meanwhile, though, thank you for hanging out with me today.
Appreciate it.
We got this thing about Dallas Star's Sean Avery, who referred to his former girlfriend, Alicia Cuthbert, as sloppy seconds.
I don't offer this up as goofy e-network stuff, but just and it got suspended indefinitely.
It's one of those societal opportunities to take the pulse of offenses and punishment and whether punishments fit the crime.
We are in Lubbock.
This is going to be good.
Hi, David.
Mark Davis.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
How you doing?
Good.
You know, just talking to a guy earlier, you know, I'm not even a hockey fan.
Don't even know this guy.
Yeah.
But he has the right to say what he wants to say.
It's not.
Let me back up.
Well, let's back up.
Let's back up right now.
No, seriously.
We got X amount of time, and I really want to spend it with you.
Let's back up right now.
On what do you base the assertion?
The totally false assertion.
Excuse me, David.
This is very serious.
On what do you base the assertion that he had the right to say this?
Because of course he had the right to say it.
He didn't get put in jail, but he doesn't have the right to say it without consequences.
Sure he does.
You have a freedom of speech in this country.
Are you high?
Hang on, no, dude.
You hang on.
Are you high or what?
David, I don't mean to be unkind.
No, no, no.
You let me talk for a second.
Okay, you know what?
You're right.
Go 30 seconds.
It'll be good.
I called.
Okay, he didn't go into a theater.
He didn't yell fire.
He didn't hurt anybody.
What he said was absolutely horrible, horrible thing to say about any woman at all.
But he has the right to say what he wants to say as long as he's not going in and calling, creating a fire or a panic or anything like that.
Does this mean, David, David, David, 30 seconds apiece?
It'll be like playing tennis.
Does this mean, because here's how preposterous what you've just said is.
Does that mean that I here on the radio, you working forever you work for, any public figure, any private figure, may walk out and say absolutely anything.
I hate blacks.
I hate Jews.
You know, Hitler was a good guy.
Anything that incendiary, and unless it's fire in a crowded theater, it doesn't matter what kind of embarrassment or disfavor that brings.
Is that your assertion?
My turn.
What he said was sloppy seconds.
That is nothing that he's not calling her a whore.
He's not calling her, you know, a bad name.
He's saying she is second.
She is somebody I've had and I don't want to be with, and they're going to take up with her.
That's totally up to her.
That's whatever she wants to do.
That's his opinion of it.
It's an opinion.
It's like belly buttons.
We all have them.
Some go in, some go out.
You may not agree with it.
But he did not, you know, call her an ethnic racial thing.
He did not call her, you know, anything like that.
What he said is sloppy seconds.
Well, that's exactly what he meant.
She's with me.
Now the second choice is this other guy.
Now, what he said was horrible.
I don't believe in calling women that at all.
But he has the right to say it here.
He did not call her dad by any other bad name.
Volume of words does not equal clarity.
Since, and perhaps, sweet Lord, you will listen to me now.
Who gets to make the call over whether what he said was worthy of suspension?
Is it you?
No.
Is it me?
No.
It's the NHL.
Every day, every day, NHL is his boss.
Every day, bosses make judgment calls on consequences for things employees have done.
Sometimes it's fair, sometimes it's unfair.
If you are here to tell me that you think the NHL overreacted, fine, we can agree or disagree.
That's fine.
You're totally on solid ground to say, you know what?
I think the NHL totally overreacted.
The vital error here and the absolutely essential thing that you and others must understand, there is no free speech issue here.
None.
Free speech has never included the right to say anything you wish without consequences.
So if you think the NHL overreacted, fine, you'll get no gripe from me.
I'll probably disagree with you, but no problem there.
But when you step forward, as many misguided souls do, to say that the John Rockers and Sean Avery's and even the Dixie Chickses, remember when the Dixie Chicks folks said, hey, they had free speech rights?
Of course they did.
Of course they did.
It has nothing to do with anything like this.
It has nothing to do with anything like this.
You may have whatever opinion you like about whether you agree with what the NHL has done.
In no circumstance can you doubt the NHL's right or any employer's right to bring a consequence based on something you say in public that brings disfavor or negative attention to them.
So just please, I love you.
You know, maybe a little frustration that Texas Tech ain't going to win the national championship up in Lubbock.
If you think the NHL overreacted, that's fine.
But please, so that you can be a smart guy and not walk around saying dumb things, don't tell me that the NHL had no right to suspend him.
They did.
Okay.
Big breath.
It's the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in, and we'll be right back.
I want to give our last gentleman a certain honor and distinction as the final call of the day.
Perhaps the final call in my brief avocation as a fill-in host around here.
Oh, my, Oh, boy.
You know what?
I tell you what gets me so stoked about that is nothing riles me like the invention of rights that don't exist.
There's a huge difference between the way you want things to be and asserting that something is a right.
There's a big, big difference.
Maybe next time we're together, I'll expound on that in no short form.
Meanwhile, let me take the few seconds left to thank Rush.
Hope he gets better tomorrow.
And thank Kit and Mike and all of you.
I'm Mark Davis, filling in for Rush Limbaugh here on the EIB Network.
God bless our country and our troops.
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