RUSH: This is Kara in Houston, Texas. It’s nice to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh. It is a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I’m a little nervous, so you’ll have to forgive me.
RUSH: Well, you don’t sound nervous. You sound like you’re on a teleprompter.
CALLER: No, no. (giggling)
RUSH: Just kidding, just kidding.
CALLER: (giggling) Actually, it’s a sad call because I have to correct you about something.
RUSH: Oh, no!
CALLER: Yeah. On Wednesday you had talked about Enron and mark-to-market accounting, and you had it all wrong.
RUSH: No, I did not have it all wrong! I had a guy who’s an expert on it call me and say, ‘You were right, but you didn’t go far enough.’
CALLER: Nnnnno, no, no, no, no, no. Mark-to-market accounting, Enron did use it, that’s true, but they were never accused of manipulating mark-to-market accounting, at all, by anyone, not even the Justice Department.
RUSH: No. No. I didn’t. No, no, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I don’t think I said that. I think what I said — and I was wrong about this. I said that Sarbanes-Oxley put mark to market in as a reaction to Enron abusing things that were not mark to market, obviously. Somebody sent me a note and said, ‘No, you’re wrong about that. Mark to market has been around long before Enron.’
CALLER: That’s true.
RUSH: But that Enron was the catalyst for Sarbanes-Oxley and the strengthening of mark to market and making it the law of the land.
CALLER: Well, it’s true that Enron was sort of responsible for Sarbanes-Oxley, but the interesting thing is Enron had — completely by itself — begun implementing some of the precautions before Sarbanes-Oxley then convened. In fact, one of the things that is really upsetting me especially now with the IAG (sic) situation, is that you seem to buy into the whole idea that Enron was corrupt, and I just don’t think it was corrupt.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: There was no fraud.
RUSH: I see where you’re coming from.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: You think that I took the occasion of those comments to bash Enron.
CALLER: Yes!
RUSH: I was bashing Congress!
CALLER: Who could…? (garbled)
RUSH: I’m glad you called here. Enron, they’re gone. What’s the…? Congress over… I gave the meter example. So Enron does whatever they do, and the meter goes far left. They go, ‘Oh, we gotta fix this,’ and rather than bring the meter back to the center we go far to the right or just whatever direction, and we overcompensate, we over-legislate, and do everything else. I was blaming Congress for this.
CALLER: Okay, well, good. I misunderstood then, but I just don’t like Enron being used.
RUSH: But I’ll tell you what defending Enron today is like… Why don’t you defend AIG next?
CALLER: I do. I do defend them! I think it’s great that they got those bonuses. I think that —
RUSH: This is my kinda woman here.
CALLER: (giggles) I —
RUSH: You’re fearless! You’ve got courage.
CALLER: Well, I absolutely believe in the American businessman. I think that they are the engines of our economy, and when we start getting into really petty, stupid, class warfare-type arguments, it lowers us all, and it does nothing for our country or for ourselves and I think that’s silly. And what we’re seeing now… Enron was really, you know, they were a fantastic company. I love them, and I’m so sorry they’re gone.
RUSH: Did you work there? Dah, dah, dah! Did you work there?
CALLER: I did work there. I love them, and I love my company, and I love… I just can’t say bad things about it. There was no fraud or conspiracy at Enron. But of course nobody will listen to that now. And what we saw with Enron was a witch hunt. That’s why Jeff Skilling is in prison and why the Broadband Three are about to go back to trial for the second time, and one of them is going to trial for the third time, and this is just ridiculous. This is a witch hunt. They did nothing wrong. They were just practicing business.
RUSH: Well, you’re going to have a tough sell on that.
CALLER: Which part?
RUSH: You’re going to have a tough sell on the fact that Enron did nothing wrong. I think that’s biting off a liiiittle bit more than you might want to chew.
CALLER: No. No, no. I really don’t think it did. There was one… Andy Fastow did steal from Enron, but he also worked for LJM. Enron was the victim, and people keep saying, ‘Oh, (garbled)…’ Enron was the people that they were stealing from. It wasn’t like Enron was, you know, out there needling people and taking money that wasn’t theirs. I mean Enron was the source of the money that was stolen. It’s like, you know, bringing a rape victim or something.
RUSH: Well, I’m not sure I agree with you on all that. And what happened to Enron happened, and they end up with nothing and people that worked there end up with nothing and so forth. I understand the philosophical point that you were making, but I was taking the occasion of what you heard on the radio the other day, to be critical of Congress.