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Aug. 26, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
August 26, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 Podcast.
Rush is back on Monday, and all will be right with the world.
Well, actually, plenty will be wrong with the world, but at least he'll be back to talk about it.
I'm Mark Davis.
Hi.
Wrapping up the week.
I join you from Rick Perry's, Texas.
George W. Bush's Texas.
LBJ's Texas, I guess, if you want to be bipartisan about it.
I join you from the Normandy of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex in the studios of WBAP, Proud Limbaugh affiliate since the early nineties.
So hi, Mark Davis, how are you?
We had a good time yesterday.
Let's see if we can raise that bar today.
I tell you one thing that makes it extra festive.
Hey, it's open line Friday.
Live from New York City.
It's open line Friday.
And the the more persnickety among you will say, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I mean, aren't you in Texas?
And, you know, obviously Rush is doing a lot of those shows from Florida these days because he's blessed enough to live there.
So what's the New York thing?
Well, the New York thing.
Every Rush Limbaugh show ultimately comes to you, if not from New York, through New York, because that's where the technology is and probably some big satellite tower of some kind.
And that's where our engineer Mike Mamon and uh guiding guru Bo Snerdly and uh in-training screener Greg Chapin are strapped in and ready to handle the onslaught of your calls.
It is a room that I have been in.
I was up in New York and uh last year, year before, something like that, and I I think the first time I sat in here was mm, gosh, March of a couple of years ago, I want to say.
And I was in the neighborhood, so I popped in and saw the the opera little operations room where when Rush is in New York, or if any guest host is in New York, the room they occupy, and there's the the leather chair with the EIB logo, sort of the uh the the adjunct uh studio there the for when people are doing the show from New York, where of course Rush did the show uh where Rush did the show forever.
And it's funny, I just a dumb little anecdote if I can, because it's the weekend, we're loosey goosey.
The first time I sort of walked into Rush's world, I'd come here to work at WBAP in Dallas Fort Worth in 1994.
And this was either that year or by the time we get to 95 or 96, Rush was doing the TV show.
And we all very fondly remember the TV show, the Half Hour Syndicated TV show.
He would do the radio show and then go and do uh a tape, I guess, in the early evening, I guess, uh the syndicated TV show.
And what we did is we took some listeners from Houston and some listeners from Dallas Fort Worth, and we put ourselves on a charter plane, flew up to New York, trolled around Manhattan for two or three days, and um and attended a taping of of Rush's TV show.
I still did my show back here to Dallas Fort Worth, and did it from uh what was our was and still is our sister station, the Mighty 77 WABC in New York City, there at Two Penn Plaza, the big office building that uh that rises high over Madison Square Garden.
So I'm in there doing my show, having a great time.
And at that at that time, just as at this time, my show was on our station right before Rush.
So uh I didn't want to bother him.
It's like, who's this guy?
I'm down the hall.
I mean, and he was doing the show from the the the actual facilities of WABC, now of course, and forever, the New York Rush Limbaugh affiliate.
And people always ask me, and and I so I'm that's it's one of the reasons I'm really telling this story.
You know, what's Rush really like?
What's Rush really like?
Well, let me tell you something.
Uh I know a lot of people in our industry, and and we're not all really affable, agreeable people, some particularly not.
There's a reason why some people who do this for a living uh enjoy being in really closed, secluded studios and not really getting out and seeing a lot of real human beings.
And I just want to tell you about the graciousness and the decency.
And listen, everybody's decent and kind for 30 seconds, like you know, how soon can I get out of here?
He came by, sat in on my show, talked to me from what must have been a couple of segments, just back to the Dallas Fort Worth audience, and this is sixteen years ago now.
And in the few times uh uh that he's come to town to do events for us, or I've been up and just actually had a chance to be around him.
Um this sounds like total shill talk or total you know what kissing, but you know what?
Uh and and and uh it's also abundantly true.
Every bit the prince of a man you would expect him to be.
Every bit.
And so I I really go on that little rant just to express gratitude for the uh the ability to be here.
And I know uh brother Stein and Brother Belling feel the same way, and we've had a great time this week filling in.
Okay, time to shut up and move on to actual topics.
Let's do it.
1800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882.
All right.
I've I've been the day before yesterday I heard uh Bo prodding Mark Belling into going into some detail about his raw his his hot Ron Paul opinions.
Before the show even begins today, Bo and I are tossing around hot topics.
Let's do this, let's do that.
What do you think about this?
What do you think about that?
And I had a little something in my head.
It's like what the big story of today, obviously, is something that at first blush seems completely apolitical, and of course largely is, and that is uh hurricane Irene.
And the first thing that needs to be said about that, some might argue the only thing that needs to be said about that, is to reach out to those listening along the uh the Atlantic coast, Rush Limbaugh stations in North Carolina, Virginia, and Northward, where it could be a pretty wild weekend and pretty wild beginning of next week.
And of course, the first human sentiment that I want to offer is God bless you folks, batting down the hatches when the authorities say get out, get out, don't fire up a blender of margaritas and go, oh, this'll be fun, eh?
Don't do that.
Don't die.
Okay, do me a favor, don't die.
And in all seriousness, l let's let us I'd like this whole thing to fizzle right now and become a non-story.
Uh looks like that's probably not gonna happen.
Will it be category two or three or whatever by the time it hits uh North Carolina?
What category will it be by the time it uh blows up Fifth Avenue uh as was suggested in one of the computer models.
Um so the again, the first thing and the overall abiding, overarching thing is if you're in that path, just be safe, and I hope that uh that everything from human to uh structural toll is minimal.
Let's have every good thought and every prayer directed toward everyone that is in Hurricane Irene's path.
Okay?
Are we good?
All right.
Now let's have the conversation that not many shows will have.
And here's here's what I mean.
I I have said this a few times in my career, and I've had a lot of people agree with me, and and let's see if you do, and what we need to do is to tell everybody from affiliates in North Carolina to affiliates in Maine, we love you, and everything I just said was sincere.
That having been said, let me share a couple of things and see if it resonates with you and see and see if we can ask why it is, what we think's going on, and what all the media ought to do about it.
There is nothing that is as kind of crazy to me as approaching hurricane coverage.
It's like they are hiring new reporters so that they can have people block by block in every town and every stretch of seacoast from Nag's head to Newfoundland, so that every channel, every network.
I mean, I I stumbled across Diane Sawyer yesterday, and they've got uh uh is it Dan Harris, I guess, was the one walking around sunny New York City saying the models say this thing's gonna come right up Fifth Avenue.
What's it gonna do?
Shop.
And uh and then there's somebody else who's uh in Philadelphia.
Well, you know, it's i it's not always sunny in Philadelphia, as the show title says, but it was this day, like we have it a couple of days from now, you know, ooh.
And why exactly is that?
Because here are the facts of approaching hurricane stories.
God, I'm gonna get eaten alive for this.
Address your emails to Bo, because I wanted to keep there's a long list of things that every host believes and doesn't quite know if he wants to float out.
So not only am I going to float this out, I'm gonna do it on the limbaugh show.
This will either work out really well or not.
The Irene story affects a small percentage of America.
Are you sitting out there in California?
Are you sitting in Montana?
Are you sitting in Arizona?
Are you sitting in in Missouri going, okay, I get it, a hurricane's coming.
My prayer is that it not eat up thousands of buildings or hurt or kill anybody.
But let me know when it happens.
I don't need team coverage with 47 people and entire hours of the Today Show eaten up with this before the thing even hits.
Or are you sitting here with me in Texas?
Where we had a whole lot of our state on fire.
And uh couldn't get a federal emergency declaration.
Whoops, the story just became political.
Well, everything's political at some point to some degree.
And I got a lot of emails on the local show this morning here in Dallas Fort Worth saying, uh, hey Mark, you think this is there a possibility that this could be another Katrina?
Well, the answer to that is no, no, and no, for the following reasons.
Number one, it seems that the Atlantic Coast communities have their act together a little better than New Orleans and Louisiana did.
It seems that we have uh somewhat more talented elected leadership along these states than Louisiana and New Orleans did.
It seems that even the Atlantic coast of the United States is not below sea level as New Orleans was where they chose to build a city anyway.
And I love New Orleans, God bless New Orleans.
Hope you all are doing well.
But the real reason this is not going to be another Katrina, is you could have every single element of Katrina.
You know it's coming, but tons of people don't leave.
Local officials really mess it up.
State officials really mess it up.
And yes, federal officials really mess stuff up.
So you got every element of Katrina.
It's Katrina 2.0.
Yeah, except for one thing.
Bush isn't president.
Mm-hmm.
With Obama as president.
His reputational bodyguards in the media will see to it that this would not be another Katrina, even if it were another Katrina.
All right.
So as we begin, look, I've got all kinds of stuff.
There's a Peggy Noonan, whom I love, has uh written a thing where she she thinks Rick Perry just pops off at the mouth too much.
Uh which is A, probably true, and B part of his charm.
Jonah Goldberg, whom I love in National Review, also says he has a Rick Perry problem.
Well, we'll see if you do.
And I don't know, I'm not going to bury you in Rick Perry talk.
I mean, I here I am in Texas, obviously, but I'd be doing it anyway because he is a total front runner now.
Got this big old lead over Mitt Romney.
Oh, did you hear Romney with this lady in New Hampshire.
Um, I don't know where he was yesterday.
Maybe it was New Hampshire.
Um, anyways, at a town hall meeting of some type, and this lady asks him a really long question, I mean torturously long, and he sought to uh answer her.
Well, she just kept talking.
I mean, it was just ridiculous rudeness.
And if you're a presidential candidate, you know, what do you do?
You want to be civil, you want to be measured, you don't want to try to shout something, you don't want to shout somebody down, but by the same token, you don't want to be steamrolled by somebody who just won't shut up.
So what you have is is audio of Mitt Romney for like 30 seconds going, man, man, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, please let me finish.
You had your time, I'm I'm gonna answer your question.
You ask your question, now I'm gonna answer it.
You ask you, ma'am, let listen, listen, let me finish.
It's like it gets really uncomfortable.
Now I'm gonna tell you something.
Mitt Romney will never be my favorite candidate for the GOP nomination.
He's just not conservative enough on a few things.
If he is the nominee, I'll crawl on broken glass to vote for him to prevent a second Obama term.
But if we're still in the process here, and we've got a whole lot of people to pick from, Governor Romney, who's a thoroughly decent guy, and I like him a lot on a lot of things, he will never be my favorite GOP candidate.
But I will tell you this.
Good for him.
Good for him.
I mean, because if you got somebody at a town hall meeting who's just going off, sometimes you just gotta say, look, hey, now you'll never say what would occur to me.
Could you shut up for sixty seconds and let me answer the question that you took three minutes to ask me, please?
No candidate will ever do that.
At least I I hope, or maybe maybe I hope they would.
But um I think he handled it very uh very nicely.
Good, good for him.
Good for Mitt.
But we've got a lot of political news, but so let's do this.
I'm about to hit the first break.
And as you folks uh hop in to call us at 1 800 282 2882, let us simply make as one of the things that we talk about today, if you wish.
Again, I'll probably have to say this 14 times during the show.
Every bit of it wrapped in our prayers, good wishes, and positive feelings about everybody in the hurricane corridor in its path.
All right.
That's that's first and foremost that goes without saying, even though I'll need to say it a lot of times.
To insulate me and perhaps you from making some interesting observations if you choose to make them about hurricane coverage and how nuts the media go and how wildly overplayed it seems to be.
I mean, if this thing eats Virginia, tell me that that happened.
But the if it's just w uh wildly sensational as we begin, an excuse to put reporters in windbreakers out there doing things.
And I'll tell you this, I uh I will say this.
If I seem to scoff at this, I'm not really because it probably works.
I mean, I I at least it works in in the very populous portion of the Northeast where all this is happening, I'm guessing viewership is through the through the roof.
But if you're in some other pretty big market, so I don't know, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Fort Worth, Chicago.
Are you kind of looking at this and going, oh, for crying out loud, okay with the hurricane coverage?
All right.
If so, I want you to have the courage to bring that voice to this show, and we'll we'll talk about it if you want to.
Because it's it's just an intra every once in a while, I mean, some things are very political, some things are maybe just cultural.
Or media behavior related.
I'm intrigued at how uh at how and why things get covered and to the degree that they are.
So that's just one of the things that we can do.
Plenty of political red meat.
I got all kinds of good stuff for you, ready to rock.
Mark Davis, Info Rush, and let's start going to your calls immediately, shall we?
1-800-282-2882, be right back.
It is open line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Got a lot of political stuff in front of me, and I'm about to dive into it.
I'm Mark Davis, joining in here from Fill in Land, Rush is back on Monday.
Um tell you what, we we do have some takers on my opening premise, my desire to take an entire national audience and see what everybody is thinking about the Irene coverage, about the enormity of it, the scope of it, the size of it, and I'll tell you what, and ultimately it just becomes the redundancy of it.
How many times can a meteorologist sit there and show us a computer model?
How many times can we have somebody you know in some apartment saying, get away from the glass?
How many times and I and in a way I understand this because i th this is coverage that could be maybe even potentially life-saving to some folks.
And any time you have something of that important nature, there's a rule in all of media, radio, TV, whatever, that as soon as you're saying something or running something for the five hundredth time, someone is seeing or hearing it for the first time.
So there, I guess, is the logic for just the constant drum beat of here comes the irene coverage.
So, and I get it, and we of course all totally care about our our brothers and sisters along that path.
Well, let's head right into what might be that path on the big uh WPHT in Philadelphia.
Frank is listening, Frank Mark Davison for us.
How are you?
And I hope you're well, and I hope this is largely uneventful for you as the weekend goes on.
I appreciate that, Mark.
Yes, I've been listening to the program and uh I I enjoy it and typically agree with you as a conservative.
Uh but I think you're a little bit off base here with your opinion as far as the cover.
Let's face it, all coverage is over the top and sensationalistic, and I understand all that.
But to say that other parts of the country really don't care about this storm coming up the East Coast, I mean I'm curious with you being in Texas, were you concerned when Katrina was coming in or something?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I never said that never said that no one over the top.
Never said yeah, oh, I absolutely do.
In the in the day, it's kind of funny because before Katrina came, no one knew what a story it would become.
As it became a story, a story of a extremely powerful hurricane, more powerful than this, and a uh and a horrendously ill-prepared city and state, who knew how inept uh the the the mayor Negan and and the governor would be.
Uh i it became the the the power of the Katrina story uh unfolded after it actually hit.
In the days in the days leading, I'll thirty thirty thirty I'm uh I'm Mitt Romney now at a town hall meeting.
Thirty seconds, I'll Give it right back to you.
As as a hurricane approaches, I I do wonder about the enormity of coverage and the and the ninety percent of people totally unaffected by by any hurricane as as it approaches, and whether most people say, okay, let me know about this.
Put it in the newscast somewhere.
I definitely care about my fellow Americans and want to know if if it gets really bad and all that.
But i I guess it's just a matter of degree.
Full hours of shows, the beginning of every newscast.
It's like, man.
At this point, they're showing this to be bearing down on all on the coast, and you're talking about potential loss of life, you're talking about potentially billions of dollars of damage.
Americans, we all care about our fellow Americans.
No, no, no doubt about it.
No doubt about it.
Uh that you know, it's kind of funny.
Some things in in this show in my own show, I come on with like a big agenda.
This is how I feel, agree or disagree with me.
This one I'm kind of I'm kind of just asking.
And and you now it's kind of funny.
I'd love to know if you'd be have if you'd have the same opinion if you were not in Philadelphia.
So more in a moment.
Mark Davis in for rush.
It's it's a big day for us here in Texas because high school football starts.
The religion of high school football.
Uh there may be a lot of prayer along the uh sidelines and on the fields because if if some of these games are starting at like seven tonight when the sun is still up, I promise you we will have game we will have kickoff temperatures of uh in in some parts of our state, easily 105 degrees, if not uh if not more.
Pretty crazy.
Hope things are cool and uh and comfortable where you are as summer winds down.
1800-282-2882, Mark Davis in for rush.
Um let's see, let's knock out some um th this is this has caught fire, so let's do this.
I got Peggy Noonan on uh on on on Perry's uh sort of campaign um demeanor, a couple of other things.
Charles Crowdhammer has a fascinating thing in the Washington Post about the uh the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial that has opened.
And um so we got all that coming up.
But folks have really glommed on to this about and sort of noticing how we as a nation uh consume uh approaching hurricane coverage and uh approaching hurricane issues, and didn't and honestly, maybe the answer to this question is Katrina changed everything.
With what ultimately happened in Katrina, maybe that's why we have enormously heightened attention uh to this, because it's like good heavens, will the the coastal areas of of Carolina and Virginia and Maryland and Delaware and all northward uh you know what will will they be prepared?
Will they be all set?
And here's the interesting thing.
I hear there's one thing that did strike me as a as a pretty good fresh angle, other than just an excuse to have a reporter and a windbreaker somewhere.
Uh and that was the guy that uh I think ABC spoke with in New York who said if we've got to evacuate, if we've got to evacuate 13 million people from a portion of Manhattan, that ain't gonna happen.
And didn't they put out an order as recently as yesterday that if you are uh this struck me as an odd dichotomy, if you're a senior citizen in a low-lying area, so apparently it's age and elevation related.
If you're th if you're if you're thirty-four living on higher ground, you're fine.
But if you're a senior citizen in Battery Park, uh gotta go.
Time to evacuate is now.
And the other interesting thing, and maybe this is governmental nature, human nature, smart or not smart, I guess I would I would rather be over prepared than underprepared, because we've seen underprepared and it's not pretty.
So maybe the proclivity is for everybody to just freak out.
I'd rather evacuate a bunch of people and say, whew, we didn't have to do that than not evacuate a lot of people and say, wow, I wish we had.
Does that make sense?
All right.
Let us head to Barrington, Illinois.
Peter, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Fine, thank you, Mark, for taking my phone call.
I'm trying to compose myself because I agree with you a hundred percent.
Uh there uh all due respect to the hurricane coming up.
There are other news, more important, as important, equally important, and and these this uh news media is like selective journalism.
They they are insulting the American people that uh of their selection of what news to cover and what not to cover.
And as a as as I comment, I'm I will give you an example that several weeks ago, the government accounting office released a report of an audit from the Federal Reserve Board that indicated it with a low interest loan,
they selected to lend out sixteen trillion dollars, yes, sixteen trillion dollars to the major banks of the world, and now with the banking crisis that's going on every other day with the stock market, the banks are saying they're out of money.
Where did that money go?
Isn't this newsworthy?
No, of course it uh of course it is, and the fact that you that you knew it, pardon me, meant that you saw it somewhere.
Uh, no, I thought that Peter, I understand.
Let me reply, and I gotta try to get we're gonna I kind of want to get this fairly compactified so we can get on some other stuff.
But as long as you all want to ride this train, I'll ride it.
Shoot, I brought it up.
Um there's enough time and enough channels and enough websites and enough stations where there's room absolutely for everything.
I mean, there totally is.
And uh I don't look at this as an opportunity to to look at hurricane coverage and find something that happened somewhere that you or I didn't think got enough coverage and go, well, but for the hurricane coverage, they could have told us this, you know, big story about the Fed.
I was like, okay, whatever.
Uh and I pardon me for I don't mean to sound that that dismissively, because what you brought up is is important.
Uh and also uh uh in defense, I guess, of of the size and scope of hurricane coverage, i it's not as though uh uh is there any such thing as a slow news day anymore?
No.
But it's not as though there is some enormous seething attention grabbing oxygen scarfing story that's not getting covered so that we can have long hours of here comes the hurricane stories.
Um especially in in the era of modern media.
If if if you're not digging uh, you know, uh Good Morning America doing an hour of hurricane coverage, change the chance.
Of course, today's show's probably doing an hour of hurricane coverage too.
But there's always other stuff you can go get.
Just intrigued by the the psychology of it and uh the the marketplace decision making of it.
We are in let's drop down to Cookville, Tennessee.
Mike, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Thanks, Mark, for taking my call.
Sure.
Uh I just wanted uh let you know, I grew up in Eastern North Carolina, uh right in a little town called Oriental.
That's right in the bullseye where Irene's going.
And so I'm worried.
It's it's been twenty some years since uh they've had a major hurricane, and I went through Hazel down there, and water was ten to twelve foot deep in the streets, and the builders uh have come for the last twenty years and have built a tremendous amount of vacation homes down there on slabs,
and people uh uh don't realize what what's coming, and and they won't leave because they won't leave their possessions because they can't get back in after the hurricane.
And I'm worried I'm not gonna be able to do that.
Now you you invoke, you do you do not you don't sound well, uh you you sound like you're about 40.
Wasn't Hurricane Hazel like in the fifties?
No, I'm I'm 65.
Okay, well.
Yeah, because um I remember it it's because I grew up in the sort of the Maryland suburbs of DC, and we would go out, and I love the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Nag's Head and Kill Devil Hills and Manteo and all that's just it's it's fantastic, and I fear for that area now.
Um what in what you've described, I I think are extremely valid things to pay attention to.
Are they ready?
What's gonna happen, what could happen?
And um, you know, to that extent, I I totally, totally get it.
In fact, while you were talking about Hazel, let me confirm, yep, that was the uh that was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season.
Uh Mike, thank you, my best everybody in Cookville, Tennessee.
The storm killed as many as a thousand people in Haiti before striking the United States, uh, right near that North Carolina-South Carolina border, and it hit as a category four, and then uh caused another 95 fatalities in the U.S. And then Hazel uh uh went all the way up to Canada and and remain and remained uh uh uh caused eighty-one uh deaths in Canada.
This it's funny because those of you in, like, say say WMAL or anywhere along the path of um uh of of Irene now, the sort of signature hurricane of my youth uh was Camille in 1969.
And I'm living in in in, you know, Prince George's County, right outside Washington, D.C., and all I can remember is just I'd never seen rain like that.
And it was right about this time of year, too.
It was the middle of August or toward the end of August middle of August.
And um and it was a cat five category five.
So you know what?
Maybe maybe the point's kind of being proven.
Because here we are turning hurricane uh approaching hurricanes into parlor talk.
Reminiscences of Camille and Hazel and uh obviously reminiscences of Katrina people wondering uh is everybody ready and is everybody gonna be okay.
It's funny the the mystery to me has never been the interest and the compelling nature of approaching uh hurricane stories.
I guess it's just uh just the the degree of it.
In fact uh just one final segment this uh one final call this segment this is kind of what I'm talking about.
Are you living somewhere where stuff has happened really bad stuff has happened and and it just didn't much get covered.
Walters, Oklahoma.
Patricia, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hello, neighbor.
Hey, Patricia.
Hey, I'm getting aggravated at this hurricane coverage because Oklahoma has been in a drought since early spring.
If they could come down to Oklahoma and see that our rivers, our lakes, our creeks are drying up.
There are no more fish in the ponds and the creeks.
They've all died off.
Farmers are losing their cattle.
People are dying in the heat stroke.
We're on water restrictions.
And this has gone on since March and April.
And you never on the Weather Channel or any of the big news channels say anything about how this drought is devastating.
It will devastate this country because cattle prices are going to go up, corn prices.
We've lost all of our cotton here.
We've lost all of our wheat.
There's no winter cotton.
There won't be any wheat this winter.
that'll be planted there is nothing here and to me that is a bigger story that affects our entire country than this hurricane ever will.
Patricia thank you.
Oh this is great internescent regional squabbles as portions of America throw down we've been hurt worse than you ever will.
Okay.
We all know the answer to what Patricia's talking about, right?
What's part of the reason why all this happens?
Because hurricanes are cool.
Because you got big, the big map, there's 700 miles wide of a big spiral thing, and it's going to eat the eastern seaboard as opposed to a drought.
What are the visuals of a drought?
Well, let's go down and get some more windswept crops that aren't there anymore.
Yeah, this is good.
exactly right right so you know it it's it's what what what is more compelling what is more visually compelling what listen I that that's pretty pure human nature in terms of the media bringing it to us and the degree to which we consume it.
I mean if they tell you hey coming up tonight night line takes a look at Oklahoma drought yeah that's that's an opportunity to hit your Ti vote probably and see what movies you still have.
But if it's uh here comes the hurricane that's gonna eat America everybody uh everybody's in.
But apparently not everybody as we're hearing on some of our phone lines.
I'll tell you what let's do let's do like another segment of this and then I'm gonna bolt into some of the uh the week interview political stuff of the day but this is this has been interesting.
I've been doing it.
Uh Mark Davis in for Rush on the EIB network.
It is open line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in from Texas a state largely unaffected by Hurricane Irene as are most states but we are inundated before the hurricane uh inundated with coverage which is fine which I get and and but we're sort of we're talking about the the amount of coverage and and how that's striking people and the nature of it and the tone of it and uh and I just sort of wanted to see how that would go.
Well I guess I know now.
So let's do a final segment on this and then move on to various other events from the week as uh as we continue.
Now here's what gets kind of interesting uh let's talk about people in fact talk to people in the hurricane's path who think there's too much coverage.
We're in Moorhead, North Carolina, and here's Libby to say I'm tired of hearing about it.
Libby, I'm intrigued by you.
Hi, how are you?
I'm fine, Mark.
How are you?
Very well, thank you.
Good.
Um I think the the media gives way too much coverage, not just to this hurricane, but any to us is that they'll have someone standing on a beach that barely has a white cap and it'll be three days before the storm is hitting, you know, reporting from there.
I mean that's the later cross.
I think it's important to everybody that's in the path of a hurricane to be inundated with information about it.
But I don't think the whole nation needs to know.
Well this is an interesting this is an interesting point.
Uh in fact my isn't this sort of the job of local television to do I mean if I if I ran a l as much as I've said about about uh perhaps a a bit of a glut of national coverage of this if I had a local T V station to Path this hurricane it's all I'd be doing.
It would be wall to wall here comes the hurricane.
Right.
And we have a lot of that but it still we don't have it twenty four seven right now.
Believe me by tonight tomorrow morning it'll probably be twenty-four seven.
But we really don't need that much exposure on something that um just like the fires in Texas.
Yes, we want to know about that.
There's someone standing there, you know, on the back tower making a report.
Before the thing's even on fire.
This could be on fire in three days.
Let me thank you my best to everybody in the Tar Heel State.
Thank you.
All right one more all just a little bit inland in the fine Commonwealth of Virginia we're in Chester V Chester VA Ken.
Mark Davis in for rush how are you good afternoon Mark thanks for taking my call.
I agree totally with that last caller you just had this this whole business is just out of control when it comes to the reporting on these natural disasters like the hurricane.
Sometimes I'm just outside Richmond, sometimes we get hit hard, sometimes we don't but I don't need to I don't need to listen this stuff starting four to five days out when it was down in Puerto Rico and then having this constant coverage as it comes on up the coast.
It's kinda like I was thinking like kind of like waiting kinda like watching paint to dry.
But here's the thing but apparent but y so are all these T V stations who are smart people, uh T V networks and stations and such, they're smart people.
Have they made a gross miscalculation or are you just in the minority do you think most people are just is it like OJ coverage.
Everybody said I'm tired of the OJ coverage and yet everybody watched the OJ coverage.
So I don't even think everybody's really watching it anymore.
Uh they're as I say they're sick and tired.
If that thing changes maybe two degrees to the west I'll be right in the middle of it, right in the eye.
But I know what's going to happen.
There's nothing I can do about it.
I can't stand out there and hold up my hand and say stop.
I just have to take the normal precautions if it does get really bad.
Ken listen I got to skew because I'm up against time.
Thank you very much and I just want to give myself thirty seconds to make a what let's what's essentially a final observation about hurricane coverage, natural disaster coverage.
True of networks, true of local stations.
You really want to know why they do it or or why they don't give you less of it.
Any network or any station that really rains it in that sort of follows what Ken seems to want to do is like God stop beating me over the head with a hurricane if they do it less they will lose the weather reputation.
And every station and maybe every network wants the weather reputation.
So if ever anything's ever bearing down on you, you remember oh channel this or that network gave me twenty five straight hours of coverage and now I need it so that's where I'm going to go.
They are they're trying to put money in the bank reputation in the bank for being the weather station or the weather network.
And I suppose I kind of understand that.
All righty.
Now we'll get some things I don't understand as well.
I'll explain those to you next and ask for some of your help, give you some topics, looking ahead to the next couple of hours.
Mark Davis in For Rush.
Stick around.
Got a preview in a moment.
you When some of my favorite writers hold forth on some things I'm inclined to share, so why don't we do a couple of these things as we work our way into the next hour.
Peggy Noonan wonders about whether Rick Perry Pops off too much.
Jonah Goldberg talks about conservatism with an identity politics problem.
And I love Peggy and I love Jonah.
And I love meeting Charles Crowdhammer, who has some thoughts about the freshly opened Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington.
So uh I'm just going to share all of those.
And being open line Friday, if there are things that have cropped up on the show this week, it's been a fascinating week in 2012 developments.
There are always all kinds of interesting things going on economically, all kinds of things that are happening socially and culturally.
So let's uh put them all together and just have a delicious experience in the last two hours of the week of the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis filling in from WBAP Dallas Fort Worth.
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