RUSH: We go to Fairfax, Virginia. This is Andrew, and welcome, sir. It’s nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s good to be on the show.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m a new listener. I go to George Mason University, and I’m in a journalism class and was assigned to a chapter on you in a book. It’s called Mightier Than the Sword by Rodger Streitmatter, and I feel like you are portrayed in an unfair light. Everything I’ve learned about you has put you in a negative light, and I want —
RUSH: What, is this a textbook?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: There’s a chapter in the textbook on me?
CALLER: ‘Rush Limbaugh,’ and it’s called ‘Leading the Republican Revolution,’ and the chapter does capture your success and details your — you know, your extremely successful career. And I’m new to your show, and researching you, and I’ve been truly captivated by everything that you’ve done. But everything that I read on the Internet and hear from people, especially in a college where the atmosphere tends to be more liberal, always seems to be negative. So I figured I want to get words from you that you would say to, you know, a journalism class for some details.
RUSH: First of all, let me be sure. I want to make sure I understand. You’re not refuting the textbook. You want to refute what you have read about me on the Internet that doesn’t jibe with what you know, or…?
CALLER: Well, the textbook. I’m saying although it does detail your success, everything —
RUSH: But it still slams me. The textbook still slams me?
CALLER: It still… Yeah, basically.
RUSH: Can you give me just a couple of examples? You don’t have to go into details.
CALLER: Ummm.
RUSH: ‘Cause I need some guidance here on what to refute. Can you give me some examples how it slams me. I can guess, but I want to hear from you.
CALLER: There’s a section in the chapter called ‘Reign of Error’ saying how you refuse to admit that you’re wrong and your facts are constantly wrong.
RUSH: All right, now, the ‘Reign of Error’ was a report put —
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: Listen to me, now.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: The ‘Reign of Error’ was a report put together — what year was it, Snerdley, ’93, ’94? — by a liberal media watchdog group called (this is oxymoronic, by the way) ‘Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting,’ and what they purported to do was there’s 24 or 25 items, I believe, in it, in which they accuse me of either lying or making things up. They released this to the Associated Press. The Associated Press ran with it all over the country. We replied with our refutation of every item, and they refused to print it. There’s a similar group now called Media Matters for America which listens to all 15 hours of this program and will pull two sentences of a ten-sentence point in our monologue, and take it totally out of context. The purpose of the ‘Reign of Error’ report, Media Matters and so forth, is to purposely misstate what I have said to ruin my credibility with people who have not listened, so as to create the illusion that I am something that I am not among people so they will not listen. The last thing these people want people doing is actually listening to me, as you did. What you read about me actually made you want to listen, and you heard enough that it doesn’t kind of jibe with what you’ve read that you wanted to talk to me about it. Am I correct?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And I wanted you to… I think everyone, you know, everyone in the class — well, I’m not going to speak for everyone in the class but I think most people would probably think of you in a negative way, and before I even begin my presentation, they’re going to say, ‘Oooh, God. This is the Rush Limbaugh chapter, you know?’ So I want to have something positive.
RUSH: Well, you can start out by saying that you actually called my program–
CALLER: Yes, definitely.
RUSH: — that you spoke to me, that I kept you on the program for whatever number of minutes it’s going to end up being here, like nine minutes. That you were able to tell me whatever you wanted and that I calmly and coolly listened to you and answered every question that you had. You want to know basically what you can say to people. This is a very, very important question, Andrew — and by the way, I want to hold you through the break —
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: — which is coming up here in couple of minutes, because I want to spend a little bit more detailed time with you. But this is a very, very important question. There’s no wrong answer to it. It’s going to help me determine what I say to you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I detected that you are a little intimidated of standing up in front of the class to do your assignment, present your assignment on me because you think that most in the class have already made up their minds about me, even though I guarantee you — and this is a point you must make to them — they’ve never listened, and you must issue them the challenge to listen. They’re in a journalism school, and they’re about curiosity, and they’re about finding truth, and they cannot possibly understand truth if they haven’t listened themselves. That’s the first thing you tell them, and you did. But are you alarmed? Are you a little bit worried about what they might think of you by what you have to say?
CALLER: Well, I’m going to stand by my own, you know, my guns. I was raised —
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: — in a Republican family —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — and I grew up listening —
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: — to conservative talk, yeah.
RUSH: Don’t be afraid of what people, particularly who are uninformed, think of you. You are going to be standing before the class more armed with factual information than any of them have. You will have been the reporter. You have gone out and you’ve gotten the story and you’re going to report to them. Don’t worry what they think of you. You can’t control their thoughts anyway. You have no control over what they’re going to say, so it should not intimidate you into factually reporting what you have learned. So I gotta take this break. We call it ‘an EIB Obscene Profit Time-Out’ just to irritate people like your fellow students while everybody is losing money, we’re earning it. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. So you just sit tight, and we’ll come back and I’ll explain this in greater detail.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We rejoin Andrew in Fairfax, Virginia, who is a journalism student at George Mason University. There’s a textbook that his class has been assigned with a highly critical chapter of me after acknowledging career accomplishments and success, and Andrew has a presentation on this chapter before his class. How much time do you have, by the way, to get this done, Andrew?
CALLER: Well, I’ve put together my presentation, but I don’t present for another two weeks.
RUSH: Okay. Very good. I want to repeat what I said. The first thing I want you to tell them is that they’re in a journalism class. And you are quite unique in one way, and that is, most of the existing journalists in America today — the vast, vast majority, well over 90% — who report on me, never call me, never ask for my reaction to what they are going to report about me. They take it from what I told you: Media Matters or other left-wing ‘watchdog groups.’ Their purpose is not to get it right. Their purpose is to discredit — and it’s not just me. It’s any prominent conservative, because I feel they don’t think they can win a substantive argument. So the way they attack is to try to discredit people who threaten them in the arena of ideas. I clearly represent a threat. You’ve done something as a student that most practicing journalists today do not do. You have called me. You have asked for my reaction to this. You ought to get an A for that alone.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: I’m serious. Now, here’s another thing. The essence of your chapter on me, I’m guessing, based on the ‘Reign of Error’ that you mentioned, is that I lie, or I purposely get things wrong, or I make things up, or I just say things that I know are wrong to advance my cause. Am I pretty close there?
CALLER: Well, for that particular section, yes, but there’s other —
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: They slam you in other ways as well.
RUSH: Well, we’ll get to those in a minute.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: But as far as the factual aspects of my presentation on this program, or wherever I speak — as far as whether I make it up or lie about it or whatever — the greatest source for information on my show, the greatest source for proof of what I actually say every day is my website: www.RushLimbaugh.com. On my website, there is a complete and total transcript available for every word I utter. There are links to the news items or stories or reports that I have used to make the statements that I make. Why would I lie all the time when I provide the proof right there for everybody to see? Critics never mention this. The journalists never go to my website. They rely on others who take out of context what I say. The other thing I want you to tell these students is that I am a soul mate of theirs. You and your students — because of your age and your future and where you are in life — you’re very focused on yourselves as individuals, and I am the greatest asset individuals in this country have.
I believe that the smallest minority in the world is the individual, and I believe if you do not respect individual rights, you do not really respect minority rights. The individual is unique. No two people are alike. I resist the tug of popular sentiment. Please quote me: ‘I resist the tug of popular sentiment to basically conform with movements and ideas that are not based on thought, but rather are based on raw emotion.’ I have nothing but a fervent desire for everyone in your class to succeed, to be the absolute best they can be based on how willing they are to work hard, use their passion and the ambition and God-given talent that they have been given. I have no desire for anyone to be held back. I do not see people as men, women, black, white, red, green, orange. I see Americans. I see human beings. I see human beings who, unfortunately, are co-opted into a conformist way of thinking that it is in itself erroneous — such as all the reporting about me and all the opinions of me that have been formed by people who do not listen. So part and parcel of what you must do, after you have repeated what I have just told you — are you recording this?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: You are. This will also be available at my website, every word I’ve said to you. So if somebody wants to say you’re lying about what I said, it’s right there on my website. We’ll have the transcript up. We’re going to put this, Andrew, on the free side, so that every one of your students can see it.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: At some point. You can see it tonight, too. You do not… By the way, are you a member of my website? Are you a subscriber?
CALLER: No, sir, I’m not.
RUSH: Well, we’re going to make you one. You’re going to be after this phone call.
CALLER: All right.
RUSH: That will let you access everything, and you should do it. The Essential Stack of Stuff, the archives, the backup. My website is an encyclopedia of virtually every important thing that’s happened in this country since I have been on the air, and there is proof of the things that I have said. It’s a goldmine for you. You must, when you make this presentation, say that one of the problems that you found going through this chapter in the textbook is that it doesn’t jibe with what you know as a listener to this program. You don’t recognize the Rush Limbaugh in that chapter based on two things: what you know by listening and now what you’ve learned by discussing this with me. Now, is that enough? You can move on to some of the other things that are said that have nothing to do with accuracy and honesty and all that?
CALLER: (chuckles) Yeah, if you want me to.
RUSH: Sure. What else do they say?
CALLER: Well, every section seems to throw in your… I guess… They don’t say ‘racism,’ but your comments towards women and homosexuals and racial minorities.
RUSH: Okay, so what do they say?
CALLER: Ummm…
RUSH: Don’t be afraid. I’m not, and it’s about me you’re going to be repeating.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: So don’t be afraid. What do they say?
CALLER: They mention, I quote: ‘Many Limbaugh critics believe their nemesis dipped to his lowest point in 1989 with ‘caller abortions.’ The offensive gimmick reinforced Limbaugh’s anti-abortion stand…’
RUSH: Okay, okay, okay. Now, I’m going to walk you through this, because that’s classic. In the first place, ‘Limbaugh’s critics believe…’ Are they identified?
CALLER: Hmmm. No, they are not.
RUSH: No! But they are given credence, are they not? The ‘critics’ automatically have it. This is a journalism, by the way, trick, and it’s standard operating procedure. They could report on the fact in the New York Times tomorrow that a cure for cancer has been found, and they would find ‘critics’ to disagree with it or find problems with it, Andrew. It’s part and parcel of the formula you people are taught. There’s no good news. There’s only news, and somebody who has an opposing view. Now, caller abortions. I happen to be… You’re recording this, right?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I happen to be pro-life. I’ve been pro-life all my life. I believe in God.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I believe that all human beings have a yearning spirit to be free, that we are endowed with it. I believe the founding documents. I believe that our existence is owing to a Creator who created us with inalienable rights: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Our Founding Documents, Declaration of Independence mentions these rights. They don’t come from people, they come from God. Life. Somebody has to stand up for life; somebody has to defend it. Now, anybody can go on the radio and say, ‘I’m pro-life, and those pro-abortionists are wrong!’ Big whoop. What I’ve always strived to do, Andrew, is illustrate my opinion. Sometimes… I have a phrase: ‘illustrating absurdity by being absurd.’ So the caller abortion was — and I will admit, it irritated a lot of people. It caused… And the reason why, Andrew, is because it made people confront the reality of their belief. Do you know what the caller abortion was?
CALLER: It was a, I guess a sound bite ‘with a vacuum sucking sound followed by a bloodcurdling scream.’ That’s what it says in the textbook.
RUSH: Yes, it was. See? Okay. That’s in the textbook?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Yes. That’s all that’s in the textbook about it?
CALLER: Um, yes.
RUSH: Yeah. See, that’s…
CALLER: Well, it says whenever you wanted to end the call, that you used the caller abortion.
RUSH: That’s a classic example of how what I do was distorted. That was actually a brilliant illustration of my belief about this. This took about 30 minutes to do, to set up, which also made it great radio. It gave us a lot of time spent listening on the ratings. But basically I wanted to illustrate this, and I looked at my telephone, and I asked the question, ‘When does a call become a call? Does the call become a call when you dial? Does the call become a call when you connect? Does the call become a call when I answer, the moment of conception? You call me. Your line connects with my receptacle. Bam! I answer the phone. Is that when the call begins?’
So I called the phone company, Andrew, and I asked them, ‘When does a call begin?’
They said, ‘What are you talking about?’
I said, ‘Well, does a call begin? When do you start charging for a call? When that call has life? When is there…? When you start billing for a call, does it happen at the moment the person has dialed it? Does it happen while it’s ringing? Does it happen with a busy signal, which means there’s call control on it? Does it happen when somebody answers?’
And they said, ‘Well, a call begins when it’s answered. A call takes two people.’
I said, ‘Thank you.’
So, that was to illustrate: When does life begin? See, I believe it can only begin at conception. When else can it begin? So I wanted to illustrate using the phone, making a phone call. Then I got a bunch of people pretending to be scientists and so forth on the phone to discuss this in great detail. But I said, ‘Until I decide to answer, that call’s nothing but a blinking light. That call has no life. That call has no meaning. That call has nothing to it until I answer it,’ and then what happens? When I answer that call and I don’t want it? What if I’ve made a mistake answering that call? What if it’s a bad call? What if it’s somebody who’s not going to enhance the radio program? What do I do? I didn’t want the call. I took the call. I made a mistake! I went out there and I conceptualized the phone call, and now I’m stuck with a call I don’t want.
Well, I do what we do in the pro-choice movement: I simply abort it and pretend that the call never happened! So I turn on the suction device and I suck the call right out of the phone. That, to me, was brilliant, Andrew. I hope you’re recording this, and I hope you read this to your class. Because everything that’s done here, Andrew — whether it be done with humor or seriousness or with a satire or a parody, everything that’s done here — is designed to make a point. Nothing is done here frivolously. I don’t do anything just to make people mad, because that’s going to happen anyway when you tell anybody what you think. By definition, people are going to not… Why do you think Tiger Woods doesn’t tell you what his politics are? Because he wants to sell all of his endorsed equipment to everybody, not just Republicans or Democrats.
But that’s not my business. My business is to tell people what I honestly believe. I love America. The racism and sexism and so forth? Yeah, I came up with the term ‘feminazi,’ to describe the 12 women to whom the most important thing in the world is every abortion possible taking place — and the reason people get mad at that’s ’cause it’s dead-on accurate. As for racism, this is a constant, average, everyday charge the left makes against conservatives trying to fulfill the stereotype that we’re racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes. But the truth about that is you can tell your class this: I look at the majority of the black population in this country and I cry, ’cause I see that they have been conditioned to believe that the Democrat Party and large government programs are going to raise them from the life of bondage they believe that they’re in.
And after 50 years of voting Democrat, after 50 years of complaining about the circumstances they’re in, after receiving all these benefits the Democrats have passed out (AFDC) they’re still complaining. Their lives have been stolen from them. The federal government has become the father; the father has become absent. Single mothers are raising kids in neighborhoods and schools that you would not send yours to. The Democrat Party refuses to close them, and insists that those people still go to those schools while still voting Democrat. I think it’s a shame. I think the federal government and the Democrat Party has destroyed the black family. I love Americans. I love human beings! I want the best for them. I want what’s happened to me to be experienced by every damn person out there, and the people standing in the way are my enemy — and that would have to be liberals in the Democrat Party. Now, hang on. I’m going to give you information to be a subscriber to the website.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, Andrew, one more point that I want to make for you to include in your presentation to the students on the caller abortions. Your textbook says that critics say I reached a low point with the caller abortion. Let me ask you a simple question. If a fetus is not a human life, why would a caller abortion offend anybody? If a fetus, a human fetus is simply an unviable tissue mass, there could be nothing conceivably upsetting about it. The truth is, it is a baby, and the pro-abort, political pro-abort groups, the NOW gang and other feminist groups, they know it’s a baby, and thus they hate me for exposing their mind-set. But if a fetus isn’t a human being, why would a caller abortion upset anybody?
And finally, Andrew, this. I understand caller abortions are offensive. But then why is President Obama to be praised for his anti-life positions? Do you realize President Obama three times as an Illinois state senator voted for legislation that would allow doctors to kill a baby successfully born during an abortion? Now, what’s really controversial, Andrew? A bit, a vacuum cleaner with callers being sucked off a phone, or an Illinois state senator who’s now president voting three times to allow doctors to kill a baby after it’s born because the mother wanted an abortion? Ask your students to consider that.