RUSH: It is time for some mind over chatter, which is exactly what happens here on the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s Friday.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: And there are probably a lot of people today who don’t know what Open Line Friday is. For you insiders, for those of you who are regular, for those of you who have been here for all 23-plus years, 24 years in August, please indulge me while I ‘splain this to the new arrivals. First here’s the telephone number for everybody if you want to be on the program. 800-282-2882, the e-mail address, and we check the e-mail, although it’s so voluminous, we had to add servers to handle it. ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Okay, here’s about how it works. As you know this program is a benevolent dictatorship. I’m the dictator. There is no First Amendment here, except for me. I determine, along with my screener staff, who gets to say what Monday through Thursday. On Friday we throw that all out. That’s the whole point. Monday through Thursday we talk about things I care about, otherwise I’m gonna sit here and be bored and nobody is gonna want to listen to that. Friday we throw all that out, as I say, and I take one of the greatest risks known in major media ever, and that is turning over the content of the program to the audience, to rank matures. I, as you know, am a highly trained broadcast specialist with tremendous broadcast stimulation. And the audience is not.
We love them. They are rank amateurs, but they are as lovable rank amateurs as you will ever find, and on Friday whatever you want to talk about is okay. If you think something’s gotten short shrift, if you think something hasn’t been discussed that needs to be, if you have a question or a comment. It could be about sports, it could be about whatever, that’s the whole point of Open Line Friday. It can be politics, too. It can be culture rot. It can be whatever. I’ve always thought it’s a golden opportunity for those who feel restricted by subject matter Monday through Thursday. So again, the telephone number is 800-282-2882, the e-mail address ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Also I normally don’t get to phone calls in the first hour on this program, sometimes barely into the second hour. I try to speed that up on Friday. I try to start taking phone calls in the first hour, which almost never happens. I mean it does occasionally, but rarely. So that’s another thing about Friday. We probably take more phone calls than we usually do.