RUSH: Tim in San Marcos, California, I'm glad you waited. You're next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: I'm great, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: I have two things. One is a bit of praise, and another is a little bone to pick with you. But first I want to mention, you know, you've been using the phrase Drive-By Media for a long time.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I thought that incident yesterday with that little TV station was probably the perfect illustration of that term.
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: It really opened my eyes. I thought, "Man, this is perfect because here they took a story that was two months old; they extrapolated this ridiculous premise such as him needing Secret Service protection as a result of that song, and then they tried to influence their own poll results by using phrases like, 'What's going on? Does Rush want to keep his job?' or, 'He's in really dangerous waters here,' and then they say, 'But what do you think?' Well after they poison the well then they want your opinion."
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And so then they started reading e-mails that were either completely negative or were at best backhanded compliments. And I thought, you know, I can't help but imagine these people sitting around in their conference room at the office saying, "Hey, you know, let's go after Limbaugh today. We can call him a racist and then we'll act like we're real concerned for his career."
RUSH: That's not what happened though. Let me tell you very briefly what happened with these people. They all claim, by the way -- now, on their air this morning -- to be Rush babies. They all claim to have grown up listening to me, and that I'm a good guy, and that I have a loyal audience and all this sort of stuff. One of guys says, "Look, I got into work at 3:15 in the morning and I see this newspaper story about this song, so I went on the Internet, and I heard the song, and I thought, 'Whoa.' And I sit right next to a black guy, gosh, I thought about turning it down because I didn't want him to think I'm a racist, and that's what led to our poll." Their story was not about a poll anyway. They're just trying to cover it. But the truth of the matter is, this is a news organization that was totally unaware this song existed for two and a half months until they read a newspaper story on it sometime Sunday morning or Monday morning at 3:15. They didn't do any investigation. No research to find out, "What is this?" They accepted a video on YouTube as source authority. Everything about journalism that is wrong, these people did it. It is an example of the Drive-By Media. "Let's stir the pot out there today; this could be really, really good!"
CALLER: Exactly. There was a guy yesterday who said, "It's more than just sloppy journalism." He said, "These people purposely went after you." And, you know, as I listened to the comments that they were making and this faux concern that they had in their voices of, oh, you know, as if it's like, "Poor Rush. He's going over the edge! Can we call him, find out what's going on?" I thought, "Stop the fakery. You people are doing exactly what you want, which is a hit piece."
RUSH: Right. And they could have called. They never did.
CALLER: Yeah. Exactly. So, anyway, that was my praise.
RUSH: What's the bone to pick?
CALLER: Okay. Well, I called about six months ago, after the Michael Richards incident, the guy from Seinfeld?
RUSH: Oh, yeah.
CALLER: And, you know, he was being referred to as a racist at the time.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And I live here in San Diego, and we are routinely referred to as racists if we are against, for instance, 20 million people sneaking over the border --
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: -- and taking over the schools.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: My kid yesterday tells me that he's constantly being called a "gringo" in school, being teased, and so I called up and I was tongue-in-cheek I was going to say, "Rush can you help me figure out whether or not I'm a racist if I'm opposed to such things?" And one of the things I asked Bo Snerdley, I said, for instance --
RUSH: I've got 30 seconds. If you can get it in.
CALLER: Okay. I said, "Am I a racist if I'm against any group in which nine out of ten of them vote for the exact same party?" And he said, "Them, them? No. Sorry, we don't want that tone on the show." And I thought, you know, you've had Rita from Detroit on here so many times with her blue eyed devil rhetoric --
RUSH: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But Rita... (Laughing). Do not compare yourself to Rita X. I'm going to ask Snerdley. I'll get the details. Don't take that personally. Please don't take it that way. It was not meant that way at all.
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