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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: Hi, folks. How are you? You are listening to one of the top 10 most influential people in America, according to Forbes magazine, just out today. I am in the top 10 most influential Americans. Everybody on this list is from Hollywood. Spielberg is number one. Oprah’s in there. I guess she does TV. Is she still on TV? Well, she’s got that network, but is she on it? All right. So we’ll call Oprah TV. Dr. Mehmet Oz is on there, and I guess he’s TV, and Barbara Walters. The rest of it is Hollywood types. And I, your host, in the top 10 most influential people in America. That’s another reason why they hate me.

If you look at this list and who’s on it and where they’re from, I’m the biggest crasher that they’ve ever seen. And especially after 25 years of trying to change this, making the list the way these people look at it. To me, it’s a silly list. They take this kind of stuff seriously, and they look at it as a failed effort.

Anyway, it’s Open Line Friday, folks, and that means that when we go to the phones you get to talk about whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be the issues of the day, doesn’t have to be what’s in the news, it doesn’t have to be what everybody else is talking about. It can be, but it can also be whatever you want to talk about. Doesn’t have to be predicated on whether I’m interested in it or not. Which is one of the rules that we have Monday through Thursday. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. And the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

It’s another busy broadcast day where if I wanted to, I mean, over half of the audio sound bites today… I was discussed on Fox twice yesterday, once on The Five with my assertion that Obama’s a dictator. And then Megyn Kelly picked up on my observation of just how mean Bruce Springsteen is being to Governor Christie in this whole bridge closure thing. She convened a debate about it, and they had a bunch of leftists on there, and the leftists think I have no right to call anybody mean since that’s what I’m known for being. It’s funny.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: Snerdley is saying to me that I’m downplaying the Forbes list. Well, yeah, all these lists are silly. I mean, look, can we be honest?

It’s a Top 10 Most Influential List — and I got nothing against this guy; believe me, I really don’t — and Stan Lee, who writes cartoons, is on the list. Okay? Nothing against him. Dr. Mehmet Oz? Now, I don’t watch television, so maybe I’m missing them. Maybe they are influential. I don’t let my ego get lost in this stuff, Snerdley. Now, it is true to say, however, if you’ve got a list (Forbes did do the list), these people, they jockey to be on these lists.

They jockey to be on the richest list and they jockey to be at the top. Gates and Buffett actually lobby Forbes for the No. 1 spot. When I was growing up, what I was always told was that it was the epitome of classlessness to talk about how much money you earned. That’s just the way I was raised, and I’ll tell you a little secret, folks. When I first learned I was gonna be on that Top 100 Forbes Financial List, I was really conflicted because of the way I’ve been raised.

Everybody in my family, you just don’t talk about that. You don’t tell other people, you don’t brag, you don’t ask other people how much they make. It’s just something that you don’t discuss, not if you have class, not if you have manners. Well, but they called and wanted to know. They had this number, and they wanted me to confirm that they were right. So that means I’ve got to confirm or deny it.

So what I did was, I called Teve Torbes, which was the name that they gave him on Saturday Night Live. I called Steve Forbes because he was editor of the magazine, and said, “Your Reporter is calling me here, and asking me if the number they had for me is right,” ’cause I liked Forbes. Not the list, not the magazine, but I admired Steve, and I knew Steve a little bit. I’d been to dinner over at their magazine headquarters and so forth.

So I was literally seeking his advice, not as an editor of Forbes, which he was, but just, you know, human being to human being, conservative to conservative. I asked him, “What should I do here? You know, I don’t want to diss your reporter, but I’ve been raised not to talk about money.” He said, “I think you should answer the question.” So his journalist hat was dominant in that conversation, but I didn’t do it. I said, “I’m sorry, I’m not gonna confirm or deny it.


“You find out however you wish and it’s up to you whether you put me there,” because I have never taken a step, personally, to be on that list, or out of it or what have you. They’re gonna write what they want to write. So I’ve always looked at those lists as, you know, I know whether they’re right or wrong. Now, this list, by the way, is published in Forbes, but the only paper that has referenced it so far is the UK Independent — and if you read the text of the story, you will not see my name.

They only mention the top five in the story, but they’ve got pictures of everybody in the Top 10, and my picture comes up first. People are gonna think I’m number one. ‘Cause it says “one of 10,” and my picture comes up first. That’s a picture taken in Pittsburgh, on the Steelers’ sideline. I remember the picture. It’s a Getty picture. But I’m not mentioned in the text of the story, so it’s Spielberg and Oprah… I don’t have the list in front of me. It’s Spielberg, Oprah, Stan Lee, Dr. Oz, Barbara Walters, Ron Howard.

But it’s movie people. It’s movie people. I am the only one on the list who’s not in television or pictures of any that. (interruption) Well, okay. This is the way to look at the list. I think this is the right way. If you look at that list and who’s on it, it’s people involved in pictures, television and movies. I’m the only guy not involved in pictures. So you can say that it is a list for the low-information crowd. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and somehow I’m on it. That’s crossover.


I am the only person specifically, quote/unquote, “politically oriented” on it. Now, the Hollywood people are all politically oriented, but in a disguised and secondary way. So still, I don’t know what criteria is. I didn’t read the story to find out what the criteria is. But I just… I don’t know. The fun part of it for me is that the people who take these things seriously are gonna look at that and they’re gonna get ticked off like crazy ’cause they’ve done everything they can to make sure that I do not make lists like that.

Anyway, you think I’ve lost my place, but I haven’t. Snerdley wanted to get this list discussed. So I was reacting to him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. Folks, the Forbes list that I’m talking about is not the Top 100 Wealthiest Celebrities list that you’re thinking of. I’ve had a bunch of people say, “Wow, you moved ahead of Trump on the rich list?” It’s not that list. This is a new one. This is the Top 10 Most Influential Celebrities list, not the Top 100 or the Top 40. It’s the Top 10, and on it I am called a “personality.” The others are called “celebrities.” It has nothing to do with money. Zip, zero, nada. It’s some outfit that ranks more than 6,000 people based on 46 attributes, and that’s how they get to the Top 10 Most Influential, and they don’t spell any of that out. But it has nothing to do with money.

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