RUSH: Well, so, we put these two things together and it turns out to be a pretty heartwarming story once it’s all said and done, doesn’t it? We wanted to wrap this up from this call yesterday based on the circumstances that I saw last night on ESPN with Donovan McNabb. Everybody should know. For those of you who don’t know what this is all about, if you weren’t around – I don’t know how you wouldn’t; everybody did – can I just say one thing? Can I just say one thing? What I said was that there was a lot of hope in the media that Donovan McNabb would do well, there’s an affirmative action program in the NFL and he’s black and they hope he would do well, and he might be a little bit overrated because of that.
And everybody said, “How can anybody say that? Just horrible!” and I had some people at ESPN threaten to resign if I stayed on the show and this and that happened, and the Philadelphia media went bonkers and televised my airplane landing in Philadelphia on the local news. It took two days for this to all get worked up. Nothing happened on ESPN. It took the Philadelphia print media to get this all worked up. But, now, is there not – I mean I was being facetious. Is there not a Philadelphia Eagle Donovan McNabb bandwagon going on? (Laughing) Is there some validity to what I said?
“I can’t believe he’s doing it all over again! Hasn’t he learned anything?” Folks, what is, is, is. What is, is. And it’s out there. And I’m happy. Look it, the thing that nobody I guess might think about or understand, I’m happy for McNabb. I’m happy for the Eagles. I’m happy that they’ve put it together. I’m happy to have had a role in it.
Now, let me tell you something. I’ll just tell you what happened. It was an accident. I was not watching ESPN on purpose last night; it was an accident. I don’t watch ESPN. In fact, I got a story here that ESPN’s going to start an all-Spanish network.
ESPN all-Spanish network! I thought, “I’m going to apply, that way I can say what I want and nobody will know what I’m saying.” No, it was an accident. I was watching ESPN last night, and I happened to see it. [Program Observer Interupption] What? Of course I watched it, I was channel surfing. I was channel surfing last night, zip, zip, zip, zip. CNN is 202, Headline News is 204. I kept flipping, ‘Whoa, there it is.” It just happened to coincide with Donovan McNabb’s interview on ESPN. Of course I stopped and watched it; what do you think I’m going to do? I am a human being. You think I’ve got ice water in my veins? I’m going to look at that and just keep going by it? Because I know what they’re going to be talking about. It’s ESPN. They don’t want me there talking about it but everybody else is talking about it. So, sure I watched it, absolutely. Well, that was the first time I’ve seen ESPN since – I watch the Sunday night games that ESPN televises. I watch those.
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RUSH: Let’s go to Phoenix to start to the phones. Mark, great to have you with us, sir. Thanks for the call.
MARK FROM PHOENIX: Hey, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Fine.
CALLER: Listen, you know, I think you’re trying to make a joke out of this McNabb thing now, and I don’t think it’s right.
RUSH: What joke?
CALLER: What you said about Donovan McNabb was wrong.
RUSH: What did I say about him?
CALLER: Picking up the racial issue about the media.
RUSH: Oh, you want me to apologize for that? You want me to apologize for the original comment?
CALLER: You were wrong.
RUSH: I don’t think so.
CALLER: You’re right now. Everyone wants Donovan McNabb to do well.
RUSH: But it’s always been the case that everybody’s wanted Donovan McNabb to do well, and they were distressed when he wasn’t. It’s the same thing with Kurt Warner. When Kurt Warner was going great guns and the bottom fell out, the media couldn’t let – every pregame show for two years was, “Is Kurt Warner going to get it back?”
CALLER: Rush, they want him to do well because of you. They want to prove you wrong.
RUSH: Well, then it must be that I’m a master motivator and that what I did worked.
CALLER: You took this liberal media thing one step too far, and it finally cost you.
RUSH: Mark, it didn’t cost me anything. Donovan McNabb wants me to be his marketing agent. Did you not hear what he said? I have expanded my universe of opportunities. You’ve got to get rid of this bitterness that you harbor toward me and learn to look at results.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, that was your lifetime dream to be on ESPN, and guess what, you’re not on ESPN anymore.
RUSH: Uh, well, my lifetime dream was realized, though. Don’t you understand that?
CALLER: Yeah, but you were – well, not fired, but you would have been fired.
RUSH: Uh, we don’t know that.
CALLER: You know, Rush, this whole thing…
RUSH: One thing, you know, one thing I know, Mark, that you don’t know is that predicting the future on such things is a useless proposition – especially you just from the consumer viewer standpoint. You don’t know half of what you think you know, if that much.
CALLER: Well, Rush, you said that if you had been given the Monday Night Football job that you’d still be there today, but you can’t even last five weeks on ESPN.
RUSH: Now, that is a great example of a non sequitur. It’s also a great example of you telling me just how filled with hate that you are.
CALLER: I’m not filled with hate, Rush. I’m just telling you…
RUSH: Yes, you are. You are. Everybody can hear it. You don’t even know me, and you’re salivating and you’re reveling in what you think are big disappointments for me.
CALLER: Because the left-wing media, Rush, is not a left-wing media. Listen to the radio. Every day.
RUSH: Well, now, ladies and gentlemen, hold it. Hold it. Do we need any more evidence that this man is not grounded in reality? Mark, you have proved one of the oldest adages of talk radio. “When you got an idiot on the phone, you just get out of the way and let ’em be one.” Thank you for proving the adage. Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have. And we have one more on this? Yeah, Don in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Hello, Don. All right, I’m ready for you, Don. The dukes are up here.
DON FROM ARKANSAS: Put ’em down. Relax, Rush. Welcome back. First of all, dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: And send lots of prayers your way and I’m so glad you’re back.
RUSH: Thank you so much.
CALLER: I begin to wonder sometimes, after listening to you since the early days, if you haven’t empowered me with some sort of extrasensory perception or something. I think I might be the only guy in the country that understood that you’re a victim of prejudice. This last guy is lost. You were prejudged by the media. They assumed that you had some sort of ill will toward Donovan because you said he was overrated when in reality he wasn’t doing that good of a job at the time. But at no time did you ever say you wanted to see him do poorly; at no time did you ever have a negative comment about his career or his future or anything. You were making an observation that I think was a fair observation at the time. And in our knee-jerk society, we overlooked the fact that anyone who knows anything about you knows that you love the sport of football and that you would love to see all the players perform at a higher level out of love for the sport. So when I hear you now rejoicing that Donovan is doing better, I know that’s sincere. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.
RUSH: Thank you, and just one thing I had to add to this – and that is it’s sort of agreeing and adding to one of the points you made earlier that you talk about how the prejudice was against me, and not part of me, and the knee-jerk reaction. If you go back and really look at what I said it was a comment on the media. It was not a comment on McNabb other than to say his overrated – which, by the way, everybody agreed that if I’d have just stopped there, I’d have been right. I mean, they all agreed with me he was overrated. It’s when I said that the league and the media have a vested interest in black quarterbacks doing well. That’s when they blew the gasket and that’s because of their prejudices and misconceptions and knee-jerk reactions, because if you look at the NFL’s hiring practices and policies, there’s no question about it. That’s why I’m not going to apologize for it. When you’re right, you’re right. Learn it, love it, live it.
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