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Jan. 23, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:52
January 23, 2015, Friday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program still documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
You are tuned to the most listened-to radio talk show in America.
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I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm going to keep doing this for an even longer time.
Tune to also to the most talked-about radio talk show, and it is Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Yes, sir, Rebob, L. Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, renowned Hall of Fame broadcaster.
I've been doing this a long time.
And that means a lot of things.
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Open line Friday, whatever you want to talk about.
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Just a couple of more soundbites here on the deflate gate controversy here with the Drive-By Media and the New England Patriots.
On CBS this morning, the co-host Gail King, who is BFF forever with the Oprah, spoke with the New York Times sports columnist Bill Rodin about all of this.
Gail King said, a lot of people looked at the news conferences with both the coach and the quarterback saying, finally, we're going to get some answers.
And they both said they don't know nothing about nothing, Bill.
They know nothing about nothing.
That's what she said.
What she meant to say was they don't know anything about nothing or nothing about anything.
But what she said to Bill Robin, they know nothing about nothing.
So, Bill, I mean, here you are at the New York Times, Dean of Sports Columnists, with both the coach and the players saying that they don't know nothing from nothing.
Where do you go from there, Bill?
We don't know.
There's no accountability.
So this comes from the very top of the commissioner to the owners, to the coach.
This whole idea of deniability, we don't know how these things happen.
Nobody knows.
We don't get to the bottom.
We didn't see.
We don't know what happened until something embarrassing comes out.
They don't want to know this stuff just like they didn't want to know Ray Rice.
It's incredible that you're doing an investigation and you're not talking to the main protagonist.
The bad guys never really get punished.
Could have been talking about Obama there, couldn't he?
He's talking about Goodell.
This guy, Bill Roden and many in the sports drive-bys have it in for Goodell now.
But he's making a reference here to Brady when he says it's incredible that you're doing an investigation, you're not talking to the main protagonist.
That would be Brady.
As Troy Aikman said, and anybody with any brains says, there's only one player this affects, and that's the quarterback.
In this case, that would be Brady.
And the NFL has admitted they haven't talked to him.
And Brady said they haven't asked me anything yet.
And don't read anything into that.
That does not mean that the NFL is trying to let this skate.
There are other signs of that.
But the fact that the NFL hasn't talked to Brady yet doesn't mean anything.
In fact, I have some spies out there.
What I have been told, and I just repeat this, that The investigation strategery here is to talk to everybody else first and make Brady the last guy you talk to and do a Martha Stewart kind of interview process, try to catch somebody in a lie is what they're going to try to do.
Because nobody's going to admit this.
Nobody has obviously admitted it.
That's why Brady and Belichick feel free to deny any knowledge or behavior or anything.
They must know the NFL doesn't have anything.
So the league is going to talk to everybody involved.
They're going to go with Brady last.
And then they will compare notes.
Now, that's not to say that the people they're talking to can't also call Brady and say, here's what they asked me.
Anything's possible here.
I don't know if the league is telling these people, okay, you don't talk to anybody about this now.
You do not do it.
Who knows how they're.
I'm just going to repeat something here.
Folks, I may contradict myself from the first hour.
I was just thinking about this.
The normal way of looking at this would be to try to plug it in to where we know pop culture is today.
And where's that?
Well, where we are in pop culture today is that the more you get away with, the bigger hero and star you are, unless you're a Republican.
And I'm not throwing it out there to be funny or snarky.
It's just, it happens to be the truth.
There are two different sets of standards for everybody in public life, Republicans and everybody else.
And you know as well as I do that people who play on the edges, go outside the boundaries, appear to get away with it, are big stars.
We know that there is no shame anymore that attaches or associates itself to what in years gone by would have been embarrassing or humiliating.
It's just a different world now, particularly in the world of celebrity and stardom.
But there may be something that contradicts that.
And I didn't remember to calculate this when I offered this theory in the first hour.
And the way that this may not play out that way is to examine just how big pro football has become in our culture.
And how big it is is being demonstrated by the amount of attention this is getting from virtually every kind of media there is.
And it could well be, you know, I asked yesterday, wouldn't it be great if people got as upset over the Constitution being lied about or over leaders playing dumb and making things up, not admitting things when everybody knows they've done something wrong?
Wouldn't it be great if people held politicians as accountable as they want to hold sports people to here?
And therein lies what could happen here.
I've had to re-examine my own theory.
It could well be that sports has become so big and so important to people that maybe there will not be the usual tolerance for skirting the edges.
Maybe if it is ever learned how this happened, maybe whoever did it will suffer because people do take this seriously, be that good or bad.
Because this does matter to them.
The integrity of their game.
You've got a lot of people playing fantasy football.
You've got a lot of people betting this game.
You've got a lot of people investing time and passion in this game.
And if they learn, if they figure out, if it is said convincingly to them that there's a lot of cheating going on or playing around the edges, then it could well be they will get mad at this.
Only time will tell.
But it seems to me that the last thing the NFL wants to do is to have to punish anybody before a week from Sunday.
Right now, this is a wave.
And you ride this thing all the way to Super Bowl Sunday.
So you extend the investigation, maybe drop some hints out that you've got this or that, but you need to keep working to close the loop on a couple things.
You ratchet interest up even more.
The teams arrive Sunday and Monday.
When the teams get to Glendale, when the teams get to Phoenix, the whole dynamic starts changing because you've got media access scheduled and required in the Super Bowl all week long, every day.
And there's no way to really run from it without being fined a lot of money and being excoriated by the league and any number of things.
So the league has an opportunity here to have this be the highest rated Super Bowl ever.
And the question is, would they mind if this game is the highest rated Super Bowl ever?
Because people are going to watch to see if somebody can get away with cheating again.
Now, I don't think the league's crazy about that.
But let's face it, everybody knows those footballs were deflated.
Everybody knows somebody did it, and everybody knows the beneficiary is the quarterback.
So every day that goes by, that there's no resolution.
The investigation doesn't end, no punishment.
Then the Patriots arrive on the heels of Spygate as a team potentially on the brink of getting away with cheating again.
And the level of interest that will create, imagine we're going to have some very creative signs in the stands on Sunday.
We're going to have all kinds of nice signs with football pumps and hoses and all kinds of depictions of what the Patriots might end up having happen to them with a football pump.
It'll be very creative.
Media Day next Tuesday is going to be off the charts.
Does the league want that?
Does the league want any kind of hype?
Doesn't matter.
Do they want the hype that comes with, my God, one of the teams in the game might have cheated again?
Do they want high tune-in factor comprised of people gawking, you know, tuning in to see, will they try it again in this game?
Will they try to cheat again?
Who knows?
But the minute they solve this, the minute they announce the end of the investigation and hand out punishment, then they've killed the buzz and PR and all of the hype.
So I don't think they're going to do that before the game.
And I don't think that, I don't think they're, even if they found out what happened, I don't think there'd be any punishment before the game because they don't want the game to be played with one team not at full strength and not with the roster that got them there.
So I wouldn't expect anything like that to happen.
But as I watch these media types, thinking they've got their watergate here, there's blood in the water, folks.
There are people, I am shocked, the number of people, players, ex-players, media people, who see Tom Brady's blood in the water and want it.
It's interesting.
We'll be back.
Open Line Friday continues right after this.
Don't go away.
You think the NFL would rather have people talking about who let the air out of the footballs, or would they rather have people talking about who beat up their wife?
They'd rather have people talking about who let the air out of the footballs.
You know what I think the NFL ought to do?
They ought to right now cancel the halftime show and schedule the next press conference on this for halftime at the Super Bowl.
Now, I know it'll never happen, but I'm here to help.
I'm here to help with creative ideas.
Maybe you let the halftime show go on for people inside the stadium, but the televised halftime show would be the next press conference announcing the status of the investigation, halftime of the game, between the Patriots and the Seahawks.
Seahawks, Seahawks.
By the way, I guarantee the Seahawks are sitting out there in Seattle fuming that nobody's talking about them right now.
The Seahawks, Richard Sherman and his gang, are trying to figure out: okay, what are we going to do to get ourselves back in this discussion?
That's another thing going on.
Mark, my words, don't doubt me.
Here's Bob in Waldorf, Maryland.
Bob, glad you waited.
Great to have you on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call, Rush.
You bet.
I have been sitting here watching this sports media.
It's crazy, man.
The hypocrisy and the double standard that these guys have put on this, over two pounds of air and a football.
If you'll remember correctly, a couple years back in the Masters, Tiger Woods signed the incorrect scorecard.
He took an incorrect drop.
He backed up to get a preferable yardage.
Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Let's be, yeah, that's, let's not call it signing an incorrect scorecard because nobody thought that.
But you're right.
He had to take a drop, and some people think that he did not go back on the proper line.
You're right.
You're exactly right about that.
He backed up.
He didn't keep the line between him and the hazard.
He backed up five yards.
Right.
So when he signed, what I understood, it was a signing of an incorrect scorecard because he was supposed to assess himself.
Well, but it was the incorrect scorecard if you acknowledge that he did an illegal drop, but nobody wanted to go there.
But as you can recall, as history, Roberto DiVincenzo lost the Masters.
That was back in a different scorecard.
This is my point.
Bob, that's a different era when honor was a matter of self-enforcement.
But the media did not, I mean, they were talking about the integrity of the football.
I am a golfer.
And like you know, golf is honor, honesty.
You penalize yourself.
This game, the integrity of the game that day, because I haven't forgotten it to this day, is what they didn't complain and carry on over that.
You only heard about it on the golf channel that morning.
The officials at Augusta, they didn't want to disqualify because of the media uproar in my mind.
Well, yeah, the ratings and everything else.
But I mean, you're talking about blatant cheating, Rush.
I mean, to drop a ball five yards behind your divot to get a preferable yardage.
I mean, I played a lot of golf.
For you to drop that ball five yards behind that, he knows the rules of the game better than I do, and I know his client did.
Yeah, yeah, well, he does.
I mean, it doesn't get more fucking than that.
And you never heard one iota about that.
Bob, let me try to bring the audience in on this because my audience has a built-in dislike for golf because I like it.
So you, some in the audience knew.
What Tiger did, correct me if I'm wrong here.
Tiger chunked the shot in the water.
What was it?
13, I believe.
13.
Spun it back off the green.
Right.
It's a great shot.
That backspin backed up off.
Was it 13 or 15?
I believe where the Saracen Bridge is, I believe.
Well, that's 12.
Maybe that's 12.
Sorry.
But I don't think that's where it.
Well, anyway, it doesn't matter what hole it was.
The point is that where the ball backed into the water was not the line of his shot.
It had spin on it.
Now, you're supposed to, when the ball backs off, the ball ends up in the water, the line is A, where it first crosses the hazard.
A, when did the ball go over the water?
But in this case, since the ball had hit the green, the line happens to be where it went in the water from the green, correct?
I believe so.
Yeah.
But you can't, from what I understand, you can go, from my understanding of the rules, if I was playing the shot, I would go anywhere from where I hit the ball to the hazard.
Anywhere along that line, I can go and hit that shot.
That's not what Tiger did.
This is where he violated the rules.
He backed up, went behind his divot five yards to get a preferable full swing at a 65-degree wedge or whatever it was he wanted to hit, so he could get more spin on it.
Bob, it was number 15.
I don't know.
But I've just looked it up here.
It's a blatant violation of the rules, Rush.
I mean, but I don't think you can go back as far as you want.
I don't think you can go past your divot.
Yeah, you can.
Well, I didn't think so.
I mean, I could be wrong.
You can go back as far as you want, but the point is, you've got to maintain the same line.
That's where I think people had a problem with Tiger did.
He changed his line, meaning the direction he was hitting the ball.
My memory may be somewhat vague.
But the bottom line is there was a legitimate cause to inspect whether or not there had been a rules violation here, and everybody swept it under the rug, is your point, right?
Well, signing the incorrect scorecard is that's disqualification right off the bat.
He signed the incorrect scorecard.
He did not assess himself the penalty for removing off the line whatever the mistake was.
He did not assess that penalty.
Now, if taking two pounds out of a football is cheating, what is that?
Well, I mean, if you talk about the honor, the honor, the integrity of a game, there is no more honorable game than golf.
And integrity is what makes golf what it is.
And as you well know, I'm you know, you're responsible for your own score.
You're responsible for calling balls or strikes on yourself.
Right, you are.
And if you don't know, you have to consult a rules official if it's a tournament to get an interpretation before you act on something.
That's all true.
Golf is known for that as the epitome of honor in sports because all these penalties are, for the most part, players calling them on themselves.
This one, there were two strokes involved here that should have been assessed as a penalty that ended up not being as it was kind of filthy.
It was foul away.
Well, looky here, the White House has finally reacted.
The White House have finally reacted to the death of the Saudi king, Abdullah Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
That's the king's name.
And they finally responded to the collapse of the Yemeni government, I guess, after Obama did the YouTube interviews.
I don't know what they've said about it, but they have replied.
Now, one thing about Bob from Waldorf, Maryland.
Bob, I know you're still out there.
The reason that I was hesitant with you on this scorecard signing thing is because it turns out I was right.
It's not an auto-disqualification anymore.
Tiger Woods was allowed to stay in that master's tournament due to a rules change two years prior that states that a player, instead of being disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, can be assessed penalty strokes if the violation that takes place is not clear at the time.
So it's not an automatic disqualification if you sign an incorrect scorecard if the reason it's incorrect is because you committed a rules violation that nobody was sure was committed at the time it took place.
And so there's a relaxing of that standard.
And it was in there in the deep, dark crevices.
And I checked it out during the break.
The National Football League has issued a statement on DeflateGate.
And as usual, ladies and gentlemen, they're nowhere near announcing anything, which is exactly what my instincts were.
There's no way they're going to have the end of this investigation before the Super Bowl starts.
Here's the, I'll give you excerpts of the NFL statement.
Our orifice has been conducting an investigation as to whether the footballs used in last Sunday's AFC championship game complied with the rules.
The investigation began based on information that suggested that the game balls used by the Patriots were not properly inflated, blah, blah.
Prior to the game, game officials inspect the footballs to be used by each team and it confirmed that the standard is satisfied, which was done before last Sunday's game.
Now, that's important because that means the balls showed up with the officials two hours and 15 minutes before kickoff properly inflated.
That means that the deflating occurred after the officials relinquished control of the balls a couple hours before the game.
The investigation is being led jointly by NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash and Ted Wells of the law firm Paul Weiss.
Mr. Wells and his firm bring additional expertise and a valuable independent perspective.
The investigation began promptly on Sunday night and over the past several days, nearly 40 interviews have been conducted, including of Patriots personnel, game officials, and third parties with relevant information and expertise.
We have obtained and are continuing to obtain additional information, including video and other electronic information and physical evidence.
We have retained Renaissance Associates, an investigatory firm with sophisticated forensic expertise to assist us in reviewing electronic and video information.
So as you can see, folks, this is not going to have a quick resolution.
Now, the reason people thought it would is because the league itself said back on Monday, Monday or Tuesday, a league spokesman said they're going to wrap this up in two days.
Well, that was never going to happen.
And it clearly isn't going to happen before the Super Bowl now, not with all these players involved.
Renaissance associates, Jeff Pash, a law firm.
The playing rules are intended to protect the fairness and integrity of our game.
We take seriously claims that those rules have been violated and will fully investigate this matter without compromise or delay.
The investigation is ongoing, will be thorough and objective, and is being pursued expeditiously.
In the coming days, we expect to conduct numerous additional interviews, examine video, and other forensic evidence, as well as relevant physical evidence.
While the evidence thus far supports the conclusion that footballs that were under-inflated were used by the Patriots in the first half, the footballs were properly inflated for the second half and confirmed at the conclusion of the game to have remained properly inflated.
The goals of this investigation will be to determine the explanation for why footballs used in the game in the first half were not in compliance with the playing rules and specifically whether any non-compliance was the result of deliberate action.
We have not made any judgments on these points and will not do so until we have concluded our investigation and considered all of the relevant evidence.
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, expeditiously may mean expeditiously in the political world, which means months.
But this is clearly going to be weeks.
And here's the final paragraph of the NFL statement.
Upon being advised of the investigation, the Patriots promptly pledge their full cooperation and have made their personnel and other information available to us upon request.
Our investigation will seek information from any and all relevant sources, and we expect full cooperation from other clubs as well.
As we develop more information and are in a position to reach conclusions, we will share them publicly, meaning we'll get back to you after the Super Bowl.
Let the hype continue.
And this business of we expect full cooperation from other clubs as well.
Whoa, the doors that opens up are huge.
What are you going to do, for example, if they find it wasn't just the Patriots who do this?
What are you going to do if they find out that 20% of the teams do this?
Or half the teams do this?
Yeah, so we'll just have to wait and see.
But I knew, folks, this wasn't going to happen fast.
They're not going to destroy.
More importantly than that, they do have to get this right.
Whatever they end up concluding, they'd better get it right.
They cannot afford getting it wrong and having to fix it in a couple of three days like they had to do with Ray Rice.
So they're not going to hurry this.
Here's Ray, laughing at Louisiana as we head back to the phones on Open Line Friday.
Welcome, sir.
Good morning, Rush.
Thank you.
It's a great honor to speak to you.
Thank you, sir, very much.
You've always said in the past, follow the money.
The crisis in the Middle East has been backed by Iran with financing the unrest.
And I'm just wondering, how are we going to solve this without our next U.S. leader doing some type of military interaction?
I mean, the last time they listened to us was in 1981 when Reagan took office.
So to me, the Middle East is Teddy Roosevelt.
Speak softly, carry a big stick.
What are you specifically advocating or suggesting here, Ray?
I don't see a way of doing anything with Iran without strong force.
You're speaking specifically of Iran and nukes?
Well, they're going to get nukes.
I'm not saying nuke them, but is that what you're talking about?
Are you talking about the Middle East at large?
Are you talking about Syria?
You're talking about Yemen?
I'm talking about the entire Middle East.
I mean, between Iran financing the Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya and now with ISIS in Syria, and they've spread all the way back into Iraq that we spent so much time and money in.
I mean, they have financed everything.
They're getting a better value for the dollar they're spending against us than we're worth getting for the, what, $9 billion we spent over there fighting two wars?
So I take it you believe that there's a solution to this.
No, I wish I had one.
I'd run for president.
Well, but you think you have the prescription.
You think the use of force is going to be called for by somebody, maybe the next president.
Well, I'm sorry.
You know, like I said, Teddy Roosevelt softly big stick or Reagan.
I mean, when he walked into office, I came down and they ran out the door.
Ray, Ray, it's Friday.
Everybody wants to get in a good mood for the week, and I hate to do this to you.
I really do, but you have to understand we're in the business now of appeasing anything that we think is a militant jihadist.
I know that.
We're not confronting these people.
In fact, Obama's declared victory and is getting out of Afghanistan.
He's declared victory over ISIS the other day.
We're moving on.
We've got a great economic recovery going here.
Time to go talk to Glozel Green.
I don't need to worry about the Middle East.
Yemen, don't tell me Yemen.
It's a hellhole anyway.
We're never involved in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, okay, new king, big whoop.
That's our attitude.
Syria, well, we were going to take out Bashar Assad, but then we backed out of that too because he didn't cross the Red Lake.
We're not doing anything.
We won't even call it what it is.
We won't even call it terrorism.
I'm talking about as a country, State Department, president, executive branch, we will not call it terrorism.
We won't even call it Islamist extremism.
We're calling it extremism in the name of Islam.
I hate to tell you this, Ray, but I don't detect any official American stance on this that seems aimed at stopping it,
except maybe at our borders, but even then, in terms of, I mean, even look at Benjamin Netanyahu is desperate for the U.S. to lead on eliminating or preventing Iran from getting nukes.
Look at you.
Oh, they're going to get them.
There's no question about it.
Isn't that kind of sad?
How many officials, both parties, presidents, senators, members of Congress, how many people have said over the last 10 years that they're hell-bent on making sure Iran never gets a nuke?
If I've heard that once from one leader, I've heard it 25 times.
I've heard it from Obama.
I've heard it from senators and congressmen.
And now everybody seems resigned to the fact that they're going to get nukes.
And some people even saying we don't have a right to stop them.
Who are we to say who gets nukes and who doesn't?
And now Netanyahu wants to increase ratchet up sanctions, and Obama's telling Netanyahu to shut up and don't you dare come to Congress and say that.
If you listen to this regime and the Obama administration, you would conclude that the real problem in the Middle East is Israel.
I'd say not only is Obama setting it up in Israel as the big problem in the Middle East, as we speak, Obama is threatening to veto anything Congress might do to try to stop Iran, ever.
Now, what are we to make of that?
Now, he's within his power to do so, but what does it mean policy-wise that Obama is hell-bent on stopping and vetoing anything Congress might do to rein in or prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons?
Here's Philip in the Redlands, California.
Welcome, sir.
Great to have you with us.
Hi.
Thank you, Rush.
And keep up the clean work that you do and keep good things on the table.
Thank you.
It's a habit.
It just happened.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Rush, this is a quick one on football.
You go out and check the pressure on your car's tire when they're cold and check it when they're hot and have a second opinion, too.
But I'll move on to what I originally wanted to talk about.
The two black, the African Americans that both got shot, Brown and Garner, both of those persons were reduced to peddling cigarettes on the street, and the other one couldn't afford to buy cigars, so he had to steal them.
Now, to pass the blame on to somebody.
Let me tell you something.
This is an excellent point.
And I remember talking about this, particularly in this Eric Garter situation.
I think it's outrageous.
This guy, because of the tax policies of the state of New York, this guy was peddling single cigarettes.
Black market, no tax, selfies.
Single cigarettes.
Lucy's.
Yeah, selfies are pictures.
Lucy's.
Because the cost of cigarettes in New York City is so exorbitant now.
And let's face it, most people who smoke are the poor.
That's just the way it is.
They can't afford them.
Black market sprung up, and the cops have been dispatched by the mayor as tax collectors.
You go out there and you capture these guys selling black market cigarettes.
This poor guy's selling Lucy's.
He wasn't shot.
He had a heart attack in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Now, in Ferguson, you have the gentle giant who knocked off a convenience store before pleasantly walking down the street on a beautiful Saturday afternoon contemplating his first year at college.
He knocked off the cigar store.
Whether he was unable to buy them, we don't know, but he chose to steal them.
In both cases, now, there's an interesting thing to add here.
Look at what this judge in Arizona just did.
The judge in Arizona just said illegal aliens have a right to driver's licenses because they have to get to work.
We're going out of our way to make sure illegal aliens get jobs and have ways and means of getting there.
And African Americans are selling Lucies on the streets of New York or robbing convenience stores for cigars or of cigars.
I think the civil rights crowd's kind of angry at the wrong people on all this, if you ask me.
Sadly, my friends, we are out of time, out of busy broadcast time, but it's been fun, it always is, and I hope you have a great weekend.
Be back here on Monday, revved up, ready.
By the way, didn't get to it today.
Mitt Romney and Scott Walker News.
It'll hold for the weekend.
Basically, Romney has agreed now with man-made global warming.
It's just a shame.
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