The chief of staff of the program, HR, and I were talking with, you know, audience emails and comments, lots of them.
You know, some of these are pretty sharp.
And HR said, said, use a couple of them.
And I said, I am.
Well, I didn't hear you say that.
No, I'm just stealing them.
I have to credit these people.
Joe Biden's the vice president of the United States.
Plagiarism is allowed.
I would think that if somebody sends me a comment that I use, just the fact that they heard their idea being expressed coast to coast on the greatest radio program of all time would be thanks enough.
I have to credit people for these things.
Yeah, that's the way it works.
If it's good, okay.
Obama spoke this morning.
He spoke last night as this thing in Williamsburg.
Today, the job numbers came out.
And by the way, they're terrible.
The unemployment rate's now over 7%.
They're bad.
There's no sugarcoating them.
However, it does need to be pointed out that January is always bad.
January is always worse than December, yet they're bad.
They're not unexpectedly bad, but they are bad.
And he uses this again to argue for his porculus package that's going to pass, saying things are really terrible.
He keeps talking about how terrible they are over and over and over and over again.
Well, they are bad.
Trust me, I'm out there in the middle of this.
I know what it's like to worry about your investments having gone straight into the dumper.
I know what it's like to be a place of employment where people are being laid off.
I know what it's like to see your friends worried about their jobs.
I understand all of those things.
We are in a recession.
That's what we're in.
But he's acting as though this is the Dust Bowl.
He keeps talking about how terrible it is.
Well, first of all, that isn't going to help to hype how bad things are.
But here's why he's doing it.
This is all political.
And I understand this because I've done this in my life.
Whenever you're new to a situation, you describe what you inherit as being absolutely terrible, the worst thing possible.
Why?
Because if things go better, you get all the credit.
And if things don't get better, well, what was he supposed to do?
Look what he inherited.
So Obama has done everything he can to talk down the economy, to talk down how miserable things are, so that if there is a natural improvement at all, he can take full credit for it.
But it's counterproductive to be telling people that this is so absolutely terrible that they have to be afraid of their shadows.
So he's overhyping how negative things are.
By the way, I mentioned that Williamsburg thing last night, which the House Democrats all, what do they have now?
All but three seats in the House of Representatives?
It's bad.
All the House Democrats got together and Obama spoke to them and Rahm Emanuel and all the guys are out there.
Isn't that the exact same thing that they're railing against corporate America not doing right now?
Don't go spending money on all of these retreats.
Now I know Williamsburg isn't like going to Davos or anything, but still, they're all in Washington.
Why'd they have to go to a big resort in Williamsburg to have this big to-do?
Isn't that just wasteful spending?
Same thing they're carrying on about.
Interesting and rather troubling comments from Debbie Stabenow, the rather lightweight Democratic senator from Michigan.
She went on the Bill Press show.
You remember Bill Press, don't you?
Been CNN for a while, did Crossfire.
He's got a radio talk show, may even be carried on some of our affiliates.
Do any of our affiliates carry Bill Press?
I don't know.
Anyway, Debbie Stabenow was on there.
And Bill Press asked her about reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine, the Radio Censorship Act.
You know what it is.
Press, here's the question.
Yeah, I mean, look, they've got to have a right to say that.
They've got a right to express that, but they should not be the only voices heard.
So is it time to bring back the fairness doctrine?
Now, here's what Debbie Stabenow, Democratic Senator from Michigan, said: I think it's absolutely time to pass a standard.
Now, whether it's called the fairness standard, whether it's called something else, I absolutely think it's time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves.
I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency.
You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible.
And I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.
Press, can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United States Senate this year to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?
Stabenow.
I have already had some discussions with colleagues, and you know, I feel like that's going to happen.
Well, listen to how she phrased this.
Let me repeat a couple of those sentences.
You know, we all have to step up and be responsible.
And I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.
This comes from the ruling party now of the United States of America.
I mean, I don't have Orwell's book in front of me, but isn't that exactly what Big Brother said in the book 1984?
There has to be some accountability and standards put in place.
She's talking about people who are offering political comments on the issues of the day.
Accountability and standards put in place.
What does that mean?
Accountability to whom?
Her?
The Democrats in Congress?
The president?
Standards?
You know, whenever any of us on the right object to the porn fest that a lot of television has gotten to be, or the content of some music and some movies and what's going on in the popular culture, they scream First Amendment all the time.
Oh, you're a bunch of blue noses and we're a tolerant society.
You get a little bit of political speech that gets under their skin, however, and they start talking about accountability and standards.
And then this is a new one: Senate hearings.
That's a star chamber.
What are they going to do?
Haul in radio station operators from across the country and demand they explain why Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Mark Belling and all the rest of us are on the air?
Justify the free speech they're putting out?
You know, part of me hopes they do it.
I hope they'd subpoena Rush.
I hope they subpoena all of them.
Bring them up there and start demanding Teddy Kennedy asking Rush Limbaugh to justify his speech.
Debbie Stabenow demanding the talk show hosts explain why such and such a comment said at such and such a time was a responsible thing to say.
I mean, you're not even talking here about censorship.
This is beyond.
This is using the power of government in an attempt to silence and intimidate by throwing out buzzwords like accountability and standards.
But as long as they're talking about it, as long as they're bringing it up, as long as they think that we need to introduce accountability and standards and balance, that's their favorite word.
They always call it balance.
There needs to be balance.
Okay, fine.
Let's haul in the New York Times and get some balance in there.
Let's call in Katie Corrick for the Katie Couric news and get some accountability and standards and balance there.
When Nixon talked about doing that on the tapes in 1973, you know, after this is over, there are going to be some people that have some accounting to do.
The Washington Post and all of its broadcast licenses.
That horrified people that the President of the United States was talking about using the power of the executive branch to get back at newspapers whose free speech and free press comments he didn't like.
How is this any different?
Of course, they're not going to be bringing in the New York Times and demanding any accountability from them.
They're not going to be bringing in the Katie Couric news.
They're not going to be bringing in CNN.
They're certainly not going to be bringing in Keith Olberman and demanding any balance or fairness there.
Nope.
It's just going to be conservative radio hosts.
I mean, what are they so worried about?
First of all, they won the election.
If we're so incredibly terrible and all-powerful, how come we couldn't even get the right Republican to win the nomination?
And how come we couldn't stop Obama from winning?
They won the Senate.
They won the House.
They've got everything.
Yet now they want to hold hearings, to call in broadcasters, to explain themselves, to explain how what they are doing is responsible.
What here is irresponsible?
That we don't agree with you?
Senator Stabenow, we don't have the same view as you do on what?
Healthcare?
Stimulus?
Immigration?
So we've got to justify ourselves?
Well, there just needs to be balance.
There is balance.
Where did Stabenow make her comments?
On Bill Press's radio show.
He's a talk show host.
He's a liberal.
It's out there.
Now, the only reason anybody knows what Stabenow said is because I'm talking about it on the Rech Limbaugh program, because this program has an audience.
There's balance out there.
The fact that the other side of the balance no one wants to listen to doesn't mean that it isn't offered.
Every city in America, you turn on the radio, you'll find liberals.
Lord knows if you turn on the television, you're going to find liberals, or if you pick up anything on the printed page, you're going to find liberals.
They are all out there.
We have balance out the wazoo.
There's balance here, there's balance there.
As Rush always says, I am equal time.
But they think there's too much conservative talk coming at people.
And they're very frustrated that people are reacting to it.
This is like mom telling you, before you can eat the steak, you've got to eat your broccoli.
Before you can eat the steak, which is listening to Rush or listening to a conservative talk show host, you've got to eat the broccoli.
And I guess the broccoli would be Al Franken or Bill Press.
The problem is, they've been jamming broccoli down our throats as long as we've been alive.
Finally, some conservative talk radio hosts are out there.
There's the steak.
And they want to either yank that away or cut the portion of the steak down to the size of a meatball because they don't like that you're eating the steak, which in this case means listening to talk radio.
Because they know better what is good for you.
And what is good for you is not to hear all this right-wing stuff.
Why you shouldn't be listening to these talk shows?
It's turning you into a conservative.
They don't like that.
And they need to stop it.
And they're going to use the pretense of balance and the notion that these are somehow public airwaves to try to enforce an agenda to be put out there.
How much more domination do they want?
While Russia's program is the most listened to radio program in America, and most of those on the top 10 are also hosted by conservative, the fact of the matter is that we are now in a world in which media is everywhere.
There are an infinite number of websites.
If you have cable or satellite, there are dozens, hundreds of channels.
There are all sorts of newspapers and magazines and television programs and pundits.
We're still only just radio.
It's not like radio is the only thing as it was in the 20s and the 30s.
That's all we are.
And yes, there are more people listening to conservative talk show hosts than liberal talk show hosts because liberal talk show hosts by and large are unlistenable.
So this is a reason now to convene hearings and impose legislation to somehow provide balance.
What we have right now is total imbalance.
The little bit you're getting from people like me is countering an avalanche of thought that's nothing more than an echo chamber.
And they want to silence that.
These are the poorest winners you've ever seen.
Obama's all hacked off because he's going to get his stimulus package.
Now they're sizing up the handful of us who are expressing free speech rights and offering points of view that aren't theirs and they need to have some way of shutting us up and they use balance as their excuse to do so.
This really is chilling.
When you see a senator of the United States talking about political speech, all this is, there'sn't any shock-jocking stuff going on here.
This isn't obscenity.
It's political speech.
If you listen to Russia's program and it's policy-wong stuff, it's almost all about public policy, bills in front of Congress, international policy.
When you see that material, political speech, political thought, then being framed in the notion of there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.
That's what the communists say.
That's what they say in Iran.
There needs to be accountability and standards.
We can't have this kind of talk out there.
Putin in Russia right now.
He's bringing back the old radio Moscow, the old CAS, the old, we're only going to hear one form of opinion expressed.
And they always use this thing.
They don't come out and say, we're going to stamp out anybody who says anything we disagree with.
They say, well, there's got to be accountability here.
You know what that accountability is?
Say the wrong thing.
Oh, come on in here.
Fortunately, there are millions and millions and millions of people who want to hear this programming and will resist efforts to have it taken away from them.
My name is Mark Belling and I'm sitting in for Russian and Block.
1-800-282-2882 is Russia's telephone number.
My name is Mark Belling.
Rush will be back on Tuesday taking a long-deserved vacation.
Even though I don't mean to belabor this point, but for all this concern that the left has, the talk radio is skewering the debate, you'd think that they'd have these concerns after we were winning everything.
They just won everything.
What are they so doggone worried about?
The first thing any tyrant does is see the need to silence the opposition.
They're playing that role.
I sincerely wish one of them, one liberal radio talk show host would be successful.
What?
Just one.
Just so we can point to that person and say, well, see, that person's out there.
Is it our fault that not a single one of them can find an audience?
Wouldn't you like to see just one prominent liberal get up there and have an audience sizable, maybe not quite as big as this one, but there, so we could say, yes, hey, Louie, it is not the fault of those of us who are conservative that no one wants to listen to a liberal.
That's not his name.
Am I supposed to use that name?
To this is the staff.
This is the if Rush is listening, which I'm sure he is not.
I won't listen to my guest hosts.
I just don't want to know what they're doing when I'm not.
This is the staff.
To Dink in Los Angeles, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Mark, it's an honor to be on the radio with you.
Thank you, Dink.
Listen, I wanted to tell you, I mean, hey, you know what?
If they actually had somebody that was successful from the liberal point of view, then the people in Minnesota wouldn't have anybody to vote for for Senate, would they?
Well, you know, the fact that Franken, the state of Minnesota is very fouled up.
It's a screwed-up state.
I mean, their football team plays in the worst stadium ever.
Their football team, what's what are the Vikings in the Super Bowl?
013 now.
Their baseball team plays in the same awful stadium.
They go and send, remember who they had Wellstone, the late Paul Wellstone, he was the senator from the state of Minnesota.
And now that they're sending in Franken, I don't know how they defend this.
Well, Mark, I will tell you, I'm not going to be able to do it.
I've taken way too much heat for coming from Wisconsin where I've had to explain and defend how my people could vote for Russ Feingold.
But Al Frank, I understand Franken didn't really win.
They're going to pretend he won.
What were you saying, Dink?
Well, I was just going to say, I really do hope that they make the mistake of having hearings because people like Rush and you and Hannity, you guys will go up there and eat them alive because you don't go hat in hand wanting something from them.
Well, that is normally what happens is when someone is called before the Congress, they're put on the defensive and they're badgered and demanded to explain.
The notion of some of these less than brilliant Democratic senators grilling Rush Limbaugh or some of the others is quite, you know, on a national stage, is quite a spectacle.
I mean, when, you know, and what they'll do is what they always do: they'll have the staff go out and find the most outrageous comments that Rush has ever made in the last 20 years, take it completely out of context, and demand that he explain that.
Well, think about what that is for a second.
Demand that an American citizen explain the speech that he has offered.
I mean, what is this?
And where do they want to take us?
But I agree with you, it will be a farce for them if they try to do it.
I think, plus, knowing most talk show hosts, they'll sign up for the opportunity to testify at that thing.
Thanks for the call.
Guy was a real dink.
Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Mention the comments of Debbie Stabenow, Democratic senator from Michigan, in which she wants to call hearings, hold hearings in which broadcasters are called before the Senate to explain why they don't have more balance on talk radio programs.
A listener reminds me that Debbie Stabenow's husband is Tom Athens, who's the executive vice president for Air America, which is the liberal talk radio network.
So all she's really talking about is using the power of the government to mandate that broadcast companies carry stations operated by her husband.
I've got a better idea.
As long as the Porculus bill has $900 billion in it, why not just buy up a bunch of radio stations, put a bunch of liberals on them, pay their salaries?
We do know it would put people to work.
And if you're a liberal talk show host, you're probably someone who right now is unemployed.
So you'd be putting people to work.
They'd be out there in the economy.
We'd have some dollars going around and they'd have what they'd want.
They'd have their wonderful ballots.
So they still wouldn't have any listeners because the one thing they haven't figured out how to do, they can come up with every law they want to put liberals on the radio and put liberals everywhere else.
What they haven't figured out how to do is get the American people to listen to them.
To Robin in San Francisco, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Hey, Mark, nice to speak with you.
Thank you.
You know, I'm trying to find a silver lining in all of this.
And I recall prior to the election, there was a great deal of sentiment on the part of independents and some conservatives that the conservatives in Congress had done such a poor job that what was really required was a couple of years of liberal management, Congress and the president, to demonstrate to the country that the liberal establishment really is not in a position to run anything very well.
So I think this is happening, somewhat echoing the sentiments of Charles Krauthammer's.
Yeah, but there's a problem with that.
And Mark Stein, who filled in for Rush on Tuesday and Wednesday, I've described him as a doom and gloomer, particularly on issues pertaining to terrorism and the jihadist movement.
I have a gloomy view of this because I think that they have enough power right now, unless they completely screw it up, to do things that are irreversible.
There isn't, as far as I'm aware of, a socialistic program created anywhere in American history that once it was created, was ever able to be repealed.
They simply become dependent upon it.
There becomes no way of ever getting rid of it.
For example, if they succeed in passing socialized medicine, have the government run health care, we'll never be able to turn back from it.
And that will just become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
We're already seeing, and I understand this is a difficult issue, but we're already seeing a virtual nationalization of the big banks with the government owning preferred stock in some of these very, very large institutions and maybe having to take an even bigger piece now, a Bank of America or Citigroup.
You're looking really here at doing things that would be impossible to reverse.
Once we become totally socialized, it's going to be very, very hard to undo any of that damage.
And here's my proof on that.
What we've seen with regard to lower-income Americans, particularly black Americans, is that so many programs have been created to help them that it's created a real dependency that's been hard to kick.
Most of those people who are recipients of assistance under all of those programs become lifelong Democrats because they're terrified that those programs would ever be cut free from them.
What the Democrats now are trying to do is expand the entitlements that we have given to the elderly and to lower-income people to the largest group of all, the middle class.
They want to make the middle class dependent upon government.
And since the party that is going to want to continue to fund all of those programs that people are dependent upon, them, the Democrats, they'll therefore be dependent on the Democrats.
We have seen this work.
We've seen black voters become totally disenfranchised from themselves and simply behold to the Democratic Party because of fear that these social welfare programs would be eliminated.
We also know how the left plays elderly voters every election.
The Republicans will take away your Social Security.
They're going to take away your Medicare.
They panic people that these entitlement programs will be taken away.
And indeed, once you create the program, you do become dependent upon it.
We can't just wipe away Medicare right now and say that it doesn't exist.
It'd be hard to wipe away Medicaid and say that it doesn't exist.
You can't wipe away Social Security and say it doesn't exist.
It's integral to the planning of people with regard to their lives.
So my fear is that they're going to get so much done that even if there is a pushback, it's going to be hard to undo.
And that's why I'm a pessimist here.
They've got enough power to do just about everything they want.
The fact that they're squawking about passing the first part of it, another trillion dollars in spending, which will be approved tonight by the Senate, tells me that maybe they're concerned that they won't get the entire agenda through.
But, well, you're right.
There may be a pushback in 2010.
What if they do so much damage that we're not going to be able to fix it?
Pushback happening right now.
If you look at what happened with the nomination of Dashall, that nomination didn't get withdrawn just because a few people were upset.
There was a hue and cry about what was happening there.
I think Russia said it many times, and I think it was sort of the thrust of the article by Charles Krauthammer this morning, that they are so overplaying their hand that this is going to seriously affect their ability to make these large-scale socialistic changes.
I mean, I'm pessimistic.
Yeah, now here's the concern.
Is the overplaying of the hand, though?
Is some of that overplaying going to be things that are done that we won't be able to do away with?
For example, the stimulus spending now, this $900 trillion that, excuse me, $900 billion.
I'm talking like Nancy Pelosi here and confusing billions and trillions and millions.
The $900 billion in spending that they're going to be carpet bombing the country with, that's all going to be in place.
These are projects that are appropriated over years.
These are public employees that are going to be hired to run all of these things.
These are social welfare agencies that are going to be getting these grants.
I think this is very, very destructive, and it's going to radically expand the national debt.
It's going to balloon the deficit, and it's going to create inflation.
That can't be undone.
So while you're right, they are overplaying their hand by doing it.
Nonetheless, they did something bad in the process.
And that's where I'm pessimistic about it.
And I'm not sure what it is that we can do about it other than try to apply the pressure that we can, improve these as much as we can.
Perhaps I do think there is a good chance that socialized medicine can be stopped.
Once the arguments are presented to the public from the other side, assuming they haven't silenced us by then, that's going to scare people when they start understanding what it means to know that your doctor is going to work for the government and the government is going to have total control of the pricing of drugs and health care and deciding who can get it.
You can make that case that it's going too far.
I mean, that may be able to be stopped, but they do have the votes at least right now to do literally everything they want to do.
And it is very, very scary.
And here's another thing to be pessimistic about.
I think they have every intention of overplaying this hand and getting everything that they can.
Look what happened in the House of Representatives when Obama gave them the opportunity for stimulus immediately.
Every stupid, addled idea that these people haven't been able to get into the normal federal budget for years, they throw into this.
They were going to go for it.
Look at Debbie Stabeno's comments now about nading balance on Dari.
They want to shut us up.
They don't want any opposition to be heard.
I think they intend to go for all of it.
And while you're right, politically that will cause defeats for them in the future.
This stuff's going to be in place.
I don't want to sound too gloomy about it, but that's how I see it.
Thanks for the call.
To La Crosse, Wisconsin and George, Georgia on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Hi, Mark.
It's a pleasure to talk with you.
You know where I went to college, George?
No, no, we don't.
La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Really?
God's country.
UW La Crosse.
Did I graduate?
Yeah, I went.
Yeah, did I graduate?
You would not rush.
I know Rush didn't graduate, by the way.
That was the staff feeding that line to me, not me.
I am not commenting on Rush's failure to graduate.
Yes, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-lacross, the Harvard of the Midwest.
Very good.
God's country.
Most beautiful city in the world.
Yes, indeed.
My comment is that I'm just surprised that so many other people are.
Are you listening on wisdom, by the way, George?
Yes, I am.
WIZM DICK RECORD still there?
Yes, he is.
Yes, he is.
See?
Know all that stuff.
Yes, you do.
I'll stop interrupting, George.
What's on your mind?
Well, my comment is concerning: you know, why are people so surprised that Obama, after he became president, why aren't they surprised that he just turned over the stimulus package to the Senate and the Congress and allowed them to figure out the nuts and bolts of how to put it together?
He had no experience in the Illinois legislature writing a single piece of legislation.
The only thing he did was sign his own name to other people's work.
Yeah, co-sponsor, right?
Exactly.
Well, the same thing in the United States Senate.
What bill did he shove through the U.S. Senate that he channeled?
Find Barack Obama's fingerprints on anything ever.
They're not there.
I commented earlier on the program that I just think he's in over his head right now.
He's never had to manage or run or lead anything.
And I'm not one of those people that I think would be particularly good at managing, running, or leading anything.
I was in management for a while.
I prefer to be the talent, not the coach of the talent.
Look at sports.
There are a lot of athletes that make terrible coaches.
Obama's a campaigner.
Obama's a speaker.
Obama is somebody who carries out ideas, who delivers ideas and orates about them.
He is not someone who is a doer.
He's not gotten anything.
Getting things done is always hard.
Ask anybody who's ever run anything.
Try to run, get on the board of a condo association, for heaven's sake.
It's impossible to get things done.
So you're right.
He comes up with this idea, okay, let's just spend a fortune, turns it over to the Congress, and they throw all of this garbage into it.
This is his notion of leading because he's never had to do anything like this before.
This makes him really dependent on his staff.
And I'm not sure Rahm Emanuel is the guy that you want to make your go-to guy.
Rahm Emmanuel's a henchman.
He is not somebody who is a longtime manager of government.
You know, for better or for worse, Reagan had guys like James Baker in there.
Even Clinton had some people with executive experience when he went to Panetta in his second term, people who had been around the block a few times.
I'm not sure that Obama is ready to do any of these things.
And that's why you see the frustration already setting in, even as he's winning his first major fight.
Thank you for the call, George.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
That's interesting.
H.R. just said to me that the Obama administration is already looking Carter-esque.
Just say those words to Democrats.
The last time they had really everything, Jimmy Carter, and look at the mess they made of it.
Much, fortunately, Carter was followed by Reagan and Republican congressional majorities that were able to undo a lot of the damage that was done.
My fear here is they're going to do things that are permanent.
I want to comment for a moment on this remarkable controversy over the Catholic bishop, the Roman Catholic bishop, Richard Williamson, that Pope Benedict gave his power back to.
Williamson's a controversial guy.
He is apparently an ultra-traditional Catholic, and he has views on the Holocaust that are, to say the least, controversial and downright wacko.
He went on program, I believe, in Britain and denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers and said the number of people who were killed during the Holocaust was much, much smaller than what the history books are telling us.
In the meantime, Benedict restored him to his full status as a bishop, and Benedict has been under fire for this.
Williamson has since essentially repudiated much of what he said and apologized for it, and so on.
But there's been an international outrage over the fact that Benedict would reinstall this person as a bishop, which is just fascinating.
Williamson is just a bishop of the Catholic Church, yet there's this anger that he's made comments as a Holocaust denier.
The anger in the rage is coming from the same people who completely understand the Palestinian cause, who completely apologize constantly for Hamas and Hezbollah, and who think those of us who are very, very concerned about Iran are off base.
The Iranian leader never faced the kind of international criticism for saying the exact same thing.
He's a Holocaust denier, and he's a Holocaust denier who's making a point.
He's making a point that, well, there wasn't a Holocaust.
Therefore, there's no need for the Jews to be given a homeland where they are in Israel.
Therefore, we're going to be just fine in being justified in wiping them out.
Where was the outrage over that from the same quarters that you're seeing now criticizing this Catholic bishop?
I'm not defending the Catholic bishop.
What I am pointing out is that it is a lot easier and more convenient for everyone around the world, including here in the United States, to bash on an anti-Semitic Christian, but they never bash the ultimate anti-Semites, the jihadists, the Islamic religious extremists.
They never get bashed.
So it's okay, I guess, because of all the oppression and whatever things are cited, for many Palestinians to not consider Israel to have a right to exist.
And it's okay for Muslim leaders to say that the Holocaust never occurred.
But God forbid, if a lowly bishop somewhere in England makes comments like that, then it's an international outrage.
Let's go to San Diego and Gloria.
Gloria, it's your turn on EIB.
Hi, Mark.
My first week of listening nonstop while Russia's away, you were really great.
And I really liked what you were saying about this fairness doctrine.
I grew up with Radio Free Europe.
And had it not been for the United States telling millions and millions of Europeans what was going on in their countries, they wouldn't have had a clue because of the way the media was owned and the problem.
It was the only voice.
It was the only voice.
Radio Free Europe existed for the purpose of countering the fact that in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, there was one message offered and it was the only one that was allowed.
So we created this radio network to bombard those countries with a different message.
And as much as they don't like the comparison, it's just a parallel.
What you see now from the left here in the United States is a desire to go back to a total monopoly of all communication, and they use the same rationalizations and justifications that any tyrant has ever used.
The fact that the one form of the media that they're talking about, balance out of responsibility, is the form that has conservative voices expressed is so telling and chilling at the same time.
Thanks, Gloria.
My name is Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush.
Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh to Hope, Indiana.
Lou, it's your turn on EIB.
Hey, Mark, thanks for having me.
Thank you.
I think we missed a great opportunity to stop this bill, and I mean the conservative coalition.
You're referring to the porculus bill.
You bet I am.
And I think the reason that the Barack Obama administration was so agitated is because they know, as community organizers, that conservative free speech leads to assembly.
And assembly could have occurred today on the Capitol steps had we all taken the opportunity to MapQuest.com and join and stop this bill.
So you would have liked to have seen a march on Washington in opposition to the Porculus bill.
You bet I would have.
And Conservative Talk Show hosts did it all week long.
They geared me up.
I was ready to go.
Well, it looks like this bill's going to pass, so maybe too late.
You might want to get that march plan, though, for the health care bill because that's going to be the next fight.
If he's right, though, and this is a legitimate tactic that we all ought to march on Washington, we're all going to be in great shape two years from now because we're going to have to march across this country.
There's going to be a whole lot of walking going on if we're going to oppose this agenda.