RUSH: Okay, let’s do our duty and get you up to speed on the latest with the Malaysian airliner. So the latest is that satellite photos found two pieces of debris southwest of Perth, Australia. Malaysia is due north of Australia. They found this debris where nobody has been looking. I mean, it’s in the radius, but the route that this plane would have had to take to get to where this debris is, nobody has charted it.

So I’m just reporting to you as a consumer of the news here. So apparently nearby was this giant ship that delivers automobiles cross the oceans, and the Australian authorities asked it if they would take a detour and head to this area where the debris was spotted. And the last I heard was the ship got there, and then nothing. We don’t know whether the ship saw it. The last I heard was that they dispatched airplanes from Australia to go look at the debris.

It’s about a four-hour flight to get to the debris field, but then it was overcast, and they couldn’t fly low enough to look and — Oh, no! — then darkness came, and then — Oh, no! they had to go back to land and cancel the search. Australia. It’s 12, 13 hours ahead. It’s dark over there, 20 minutes ’til one o’clock, two in the morning there. So the search has been canceled and everybody’s all hot to trot and everybody’s going crazy, and nobody can figure out, “Why is it down there?”

There’s no proof that this debris came from the airplane. It doesn’t match with anything that has been reported up to now. Before we get to the Drive-By reports on that, we have to first start with The Five on Fox taking issue — actually, taking offense — at my criticism of the media coverage of the airplane. They talked about this program and my criticism of the media, and to set it up they played this clip of me from a show earlier this week.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I can’t handle the media on this. I literally cannot. We’ve got anchors and anchorettes who don’t know beans about even why an airplane flies. They couldn’t explain the concept of air pressure differential or lift to you if their jobs depended on it. They go get guests, and nobody knows what happened here, so you got a bunch of people on TV who just want face time.

RUSH: Okay, so that set ’em off. The people at The Five are good buddies you know we love the people at The Five here, but they didn’t like that. They did not appreciate that. They claim they have an obligation to give people information. Fine and dandy. The only problem is, from my viewpoint, there isn’t any information. If there were information, there wouldn’t be all this coverage. That’s sort of the irony here.

The fact that there is no information is why we’re getting all this coverage. If there were some information — some rock-solid, factual information — then the coverage would reduce dramatically, and it would stay focused on that. Then it would build off of that. Right now everything’s wide open, ’cause nobody knows anything. So my take, anyway, is they’re not reporting information other than what’s been known within the first 24 hours. Nothing new since then, really. Factually. Here’s how it sounded on The Five on Fox as they shamelessly, shamelessly targeted me.

GREG GUTFELD: He’s basically calling the news coverage a show, but he is a consummate showman!

DANA PERINO: Talking about the media coverage.

BOB BECKEL: Yeah.

GREG GUTFELD: Yeah, isn’t this capitalism in a way at work, that there’s a demand for this information? Is it necessarily the fault of the news to supply it?

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: Well, he’s getting air time (snickers), face time —

GREG GUTFELD: Yeah.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: — voice time.

DANA PERINO: (cough)

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: He’s getting all the above. But this is something that, um, you have a responsibility to report, to get the information out there. I think it’s important to find out answers. I don’t think it’s just sensational.

RUSH: Now, naturally they would defend what they do, and frankly, I didn’t have The Five in mind when I was talking about this. I have specifically criticized CNN. CNN is what’s over the top here with the Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysia Triangle. Here’s the latest, by the way. Here’s the latest. This is Don Lemon, anchor, CNN, last night. Special Report: The Mystery of Flight 370. I want to remind you of something, folks. It was the Iranian hostage crisis that gave birth to the TV show Nightline.

Don’t be surprised if this episode gives birth to an entire multiple-hour every day show on CNN. You know what I think? I saw the other day that CNN has James Earl Jones, and throughout the day they’ll play tape of James Earl Jones saying, “This is CNN.” They ought to get rid of that and go out and get Herve Villechaize from Fantasy Island. “The plane! The plane!” Instead of, “This is CNN.”

Anyway, Don Lemon from last night, the mystery of Flight 370.

LEMON: What if it was something fully that we don’t really understand. A lot of people have been asking about that, about black holes and on and on and on and all of these conspiracy theories. Of course it’s also referencing the Twilight Zone, which has a very similar plot. That’s what people are saying. I know it’s preposterous, but is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?

RUSH: Now, you people at The Five, do you really want to defend that? “Black hole? And you know things like this have happened in the Twilight Zone before. Hey, Mary, I know it’s preposterous, but what do you think, Mary?” Mary Schiavo is the former Department of Transportation inspector general. She’s an expert in these things. So here she’s a legitimate expert in this stuff, and they ask her about a black hole? Do they even know what a black hole is? I know they don’t know what lift is.

If you ask these people how does an airplane fly, “Well, gee, uh…” They wouldn’t be able to give you the aerodynamic. Black hole? Twilight Zone? A black hole? Do they even know what a black hole is, and can anybody offer any conspiracy theory that CNN hears about that they will consider and ask learned experts about? And when you asked the learned expert, the learned expert sort of has to answer it, which Mary Schiavo did. This is how she answered Don Lemon’s question: Did a black hole swallow up the airplane?

SCHIAVO: A small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it’s not that. Bermuda Triangle is often weather, and Lost is a TV show. I always like things for which there’s data, history, crunch the numbers. So for me, those aren’t there, but I think it’s wonderful that the whole world is trying to help with their theories.

RUSH: That is diplomacy like I have not heard it. It was really nice. Mary Schiavo is obviously a refined and classy woman, because you get a question like that, and you couldn’t hide your incredulity. “What are you asking me about a black hole for? Do you know what a black hole is? You idiot!” Instead, she said, “Well, a small black hole would suck in the whole universe. So it can’t be that, Don.”

He goes, “Oh, yeah? Okay, fine.” (summarized) “The Bermuda Triangle, it’s often weather, and Lost is a TV show. Ah, gee, it would be great if these answers… But Don, it’s just, you know, I like things where there’s data, Don, history, crunch the numbers. And there isn’t any numbers here. There e isn’t any history. But Don, you know, call me old-fashioned, Don. It’s just is wonderful the whole world’s trying to help you here with their theories. I just love people getting into it. But get me out of here.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m don’t know quite how you’re gonna react to this. There is a piece in the Los Angeles Times today by Meghan Daum, and it begins, “Rush Limbaugh is right on this one. The reporting on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8, has turned into a spectacle — not the good kind,” and then she publishes the quote that The Five played on Monday or Tuesday of this week where I expressed incredulity that anchors and anchorettes that don’t know beans.

But, folks, let me get serious a minute. We sit here routinely and talk about the low-information voter. And I have, as a stated objective here, to do what I can do to create the largest and informed participating group of citizens, ’cause I believe that’s how the country functions best. It’s with informed/educated citizens voting, participating, in the affairs of state fully. And look at what we’re up against.

I’m not trying to embarrass the guy. I really am not. But a black hole? Really? This is CNN! It used to be really hard to get jobs at these places. You really did have to be among the best at what you do. Even if you were a far-left-wing activist, you still had to be good at what you do. They had enough self-respect at these networks that you had to be good. You had to have a brain. You had to have some knowledge.

Even though everything’s scripted for you on a prompter, you still have to be able to ad-lib and ask questions and talk to people. It’s no wonder… Now, granted, CNN has a plummeting audience, but not for this. I think one of the reasons the people at The Five are reluctant to criticize this is because CNN’s numbers are skyrocketing up because of this story, but it’s dumbing down the population. This is the reason. A black hole? Really? It’s explanatory and it’s a little scary.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One more thing on this black hole business. Again, I have to really use discipline not to beat a thing into a dead horse. I just think this is such a teachable moment. Here’s a guy dead serious about a black hole. We wonder why there are low-information people. Look at the news. It’s embarrassing, the media that they’re exposed to, and then they end up talking to each other on all the social media.

Sometimes I think we don’t have a chance. Did you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? Watch it. It’ll scare you. It’s a comedy. We’re headed there. In some ways, we might already be there. But about this black hole business, I remembered something from from the past, from the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites from our archives. I went back and I found it. This is a story, July 11th, 2008, story out of Dallas.

“What do ‘black hole,’ ‘angel food cake,’ and ‘devil’s food cake’ have in common? They’re all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official. A county commissioners’ meeting this week [2008] over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county’s collections office was like a [black hole]. ‘It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole,’ Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting.

“One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable. At the meeting, Mayfield said he intended his comments to be taken in the context of the scientific meaning,” black hole. It sucks everything up. But a black councilman thought it was a racist comment. Now, I know what some of you are saying, “Rush, I can’t believe you’re surprised that people are this uninformed or stupid or dumb.”

No, it’s not that, folks. It’s just, I am in the media business. I know how hard it used to be to get into it. Forget bias for a second. You had to have some basic, intrinsic knowledge of things. They just didn’t hand these jobs out to anybody came along who looked good. But what’s happened is, media jobs are not media anymore, and that’s where the answer lies. They’re all actors, in one way or another. It’s all about everything but the qualifications for the job.

So now it’s, “How do you look? Do you look friendly? Do you look good? Do you look hip? How do you look? Do you look pretty? Do you look seductive? Can you read the teleprompter? Do you sound like you’re smart? You make it look like you care. How do you look?” I mean, that’s what it’s about now, and they read everything on the prompter, and when they go off prompter, that’s when you get, “Could a black hole have swallowed this up, Mary? I know it sounds preposterous, Mary, but still, what do you think?”

And don’t tell me they’re just trying to service their audience. I don’t doubt that their audience is made up of that demo or what have you.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: NBC announced something. Folks, the media’s very copycat. They’re very emulative. CNN was literally sitting in negative audience territory. Prior to this Malaysian airliner vanishing, nobody was watching CNN. I mean, they’re a national network, and in the key demographic, they get maybe 75,000 people. But now CNN’s ratings are skyrocketing, and it’s all because of this. And I predict that you’re gonna see the other networks follow.

Rather than try to stake out a different place and not spend all this time talking about something nobody has the answers to, they’re going to all move in this direction ’cause they see what’s happening to CNN. (interruption) Well, I don’t know if they’re gonna ask black holes or anything. But NBC is going to do a special with a live audience Q&A and experts. They are gonna televise it, for example. I just happened to see it. I don’t know if they’re gonna do it on MSNBC if they’re gonna do it on the NBC network, but it’s this kind of thing you’ll see. If you’re tired of it, be prepared.

It’s only going to get more intense, the coverage, and it’s only gonna get more widespread.