RUSH: This is Andy in Las Vegas. Hey, Andy, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Very well, sir.
CALLER: Good. First of all, I want to let you know, ‘Rush’ is one of my top ten boys’ names, just so you know. (laughs)
RUSH: (laughs) Thank you, appreciate that. Not surprised.
CALLER: And, you know, due to your program, I swear in front of all your listeners, I will not jackrabbit start any more.
RUSH: Yeah, really, there’s nothing. You could probably say that for every jackrabbit start that you don’t do, you could probably save — oh, I don’t know — a hundred barrels of oil.
CALLER: Well, and maybe my kids won’t have to wear masks to school, you know? Something like that.
RUSH: Yeah, you don’t want that to happen, either.
CALLER: Hey, the reason I’m calling, you know, I hate to take you back to the beginning of your program, but you talked a little about NBC worrying about their ratings for Olympics. I guess my suggestion would be — I knew I was in trouble. I’m a big Olympics fan, and I seem to watch as much as I can, but I knew I was in trouble the first night or second night when I had to watch, you know, 45 minutes of the China qualifying gymnastics team trying to qualify; only to be followed up by a two-minute interview with three American girls who took gold, bronze, and silver in fencing. I didn’t even get to watch them fence, but I had to watch 45 minutes of China qualify, and it seems like that’s their theme is give China equal amount of airtime as US. I don’t necessarily need to watch the US win all the gold medals to watch the Olympics, but I want to watch the US. I don’t want to watch China and with all these judging problems in gymnastics —
RUSH: I can’t believe what I am hearing from you! You are embarrassing me.
CALLER: Well, I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.
RUSH: You bigot. You anti-communist hater! What do you mean you don’t want to watch China? Don’t you understand what NBC had to do? NBC had to promise the ChiComs all that time in exchange for getting the rights. Exchange for not being put in jail themselves while they’re over there.
CALLER: Well, obviously the judges for the women’s gymnastics had to promise that, too. They had to promise some scoring differences so they wouldn’t get thrown in jail. So…
RUSH: You know something? This happens every Olympics. We’ve got cheater judges. They’re everywhere. This is part of the game. Everybody knows this. The judges in gymnastics particularly. I mean, for crying out loud, back in the days when we actually had a rivalry… I think that’s what NBC is doing. To be serious here for a second, I think NBC was trying to set up the rivalry between us and the ChiComs ’cause that has been the contest in the medals as to who has the most, and I think that’s what they were trying to do. Plus, I’m sure they were throwing bones to the ChiComs as well by covering their team, all those eight-year-olds on the gymnastic team.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But nevertheless, I think the situation — when you boil this all down — is that the judges in gymnastics have always been fake. It used to be that the athletes were fake. Back in the days of East Germany, the women were men. They had to shave their armpits, and they had to shave their faces. It was a comedy show to look at the East German women in anything.
CALLER: Well, I —
RUSH: They coulda won a weightlifting gold medal back in those days if they’d have entered them into it.
CALLER: Well, it’s just frustrating for me to watch the Olympics and to see, you know, Costas making excuses for the judges and hearing people ask Kobe Bryant, you know, is it cool to be a patriot — and then, you know, we’ve got breaking news by Costas, which is the number one Chinese athlete won’t be competing in the hurdles yet we get a —
RUSH: Yeah, that broke me up, too.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: All the coverage of the Chinese athlete crying after being injured, the Achilles injury preventing the competition. It was a track and field person, right?
CALLER: Yeah. But yet I get a ten —
RUSH: 110 meter hurdles. That’s really exciting to watch.
CALLER: Yeah. And I get a ten-second look at the US woman who won the discus throw, gold medal. First time in 90 years, and I get a ten-second look at her at the end of a program. Maybe if they focus on American coverage, maybe we’d watch a little more.
RUSH: I didn’t see that. We had the first time an American woman has won the discus throw in how many years?
CALLER: It was something like 1930 is the last time we won a discus throw in women’s, and she won the gold yesterday, and Costas just mentioned it at the end of the program, and we saw her. We didn’t even see the national anthem or anything. We just saw her standing there. That was it, so… Amazing. Anyway!
RUSH: Were you able to notice anything in the ten seconds?
CALLER: I didn’t even see her wearing anything, other than an American uniform. They didn’t even show her on the stand. I was just amazing. Yet the breaking news of the day was China’s number-one athlete is out, and that was a 20-minute show to watch him not even start on the block.
RUSH: I tell you what, listening to you talk about this (laughing) you are a glutton for punishment, ’cause you knew, after the opening ceremonies, they told you what they were going to do, and you stuck with it.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: I know. At least Michael Phelps made it worthwhile for me. It’s kind of hard not to cover that guy. So…
RUSH: Yeah, that’s true. His is an amazing achievement. Well, look, Andy, I’m sad that the Olympics have been such a downer for you. I could have told you that if you’d have called beforehand. What are you watching this week? What about the Olympics this week has excited you?
CALLER: Oh, you know, I think we got China ping-pong going on tonight. That ought to be real good. So I’ll try that and… No, we got a couple other good things coming up.
RUSH: It’s called ‘table tennis,’ Andy. You demean that sport by calling it ‘ping-pong.’ It is table tennis.
CALLER: Well, and football is soccer, and soccer is football. Yeah, I know.
RUSH: How about the Redeem Team? Are you happy with the Redeem Team?
CALLER: Yeah, you know, and I was never a big Kobe Bryant fan, but after that interview yesterday, I’m sold.
RUSH: Absolutely!
CALLER: I liked it.
RUSH: I love the Redeem Team. I mean, they’re smashing people.
CALLER: Yeah, we got the women’s basketball smashing ’em. We got the soccer going against Brazil for gold medal. We got beach volleyball. It’s looking good.
RUSH: Well, you got a point about beach volleyball. All right, Andy, I gotta run.
CALLER: Thanks.
RUSH: I’m glad you called. Thanks so much.