RUSH: I have to tell you that when I got in here this morning and started doing the show prep, the TV networks were going bonkers with this Paris Hilton stuff. They were literally going bonkers with it. I continue to sit here and be amazed that anybody cares about Paris Hilton. I think that what’s happened today with the coverage of this, this is a perfect illustration, a perfect example of the power of the Drive-By Media to take nothing, and I mean nothing, and make people care about it. You can see how they use this power and these skills on things like global warming. So I’m thinking, what’s happening? Paris Hilton is like a sports franchise. She’s an escape for people. Pay attention to Paris Hilton and you don’t have to worry about your problems. It’s like gawkerism. It’s like watching a car wreck or whatever it is. Snerdley comes in here livid. Snerdley walks in the studio, he is livid that she’s been let out of jail. I said, ‘I can’t believe you care.’ He starts muttering to himself, walks out door. Brian comes in here about an hour later, goes into the broadcast engineer complex across the painted glass, I walk out to go to the kitchen to get a bottle of water, and I hear volume coming out of that room. I never hear audio coming out of that room prior to the program starting. I walk in there and he’s listening to this Paris Hilton stuff. I can’t believe it. He had turned up loud so he wouldn’t miss a syllable.
So I walked back to Snerdley’s office and said, ‘I cannot believe this.’ Snerdley said, ‘You are so out of touch on this. You don’t understand. People are mad about this. Here this little twit goes in for a 15- or 23-day sentence, gets out of there in three days, medical reasons, yip yip yip yip yahoo.’ I said, ‘She’s not been released. She’s been reassigned to her house.’ ‘Yeah. Yeah.’ He said, ‘The problem that this is she’s going to be allowed to go to parties because that’s her job.’ I said, ‘No, the parties will go to her house.’ But the choppers are flying all over it. Then, something that was nothing has now become something because the Reverend Sharpton has weighed in. (Laughing) Snerdley’s on the other side of the glass standing up. Snerdley said, ‘You ever heard of jury nullification?’ He said, ‘Let me tell you what’s happening. They’re taking note of this all over the country in urban neighborhoods and in South Central Los Angeles. They’re taking note of this.’ Plus, you know, I made the point to Snerdley that Barack Obama has been out there talking about a ‘quiet riot’ that’s brewing. This may light the fuse to get Obama’s quiet riot actually into gear. Snerdley’s point is they’re gonna keep this in the back of their minds and the next time one of their home boys ends up on trial, whether they know he’s guilty and no matter what the crime, it’s going to be O.J. all over again, ‘not guilty.’
After learning that from Snerdley, I came in, asked Brian, I said, ‘Are you angry about this?’ ‘Yes! What do you expect, three days?’ Paris Hilton to me is something to be avoided. What about you, Dawn? Does this miff you a little bit, too? Tell the truth. Just give me a nod. Okay, doesn’t bother her. I understand what it is about the judicial system and so forth, but there are rumors flying around about what the medical condition is. I’ve heard a few but I’m not going to pass ’em on because I don’t know what they are, but the Reverend Sharpton has gotten involved here. ‘Reverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network, and one of the country’s foremost leaders for civil rights, is blasting the justice system…’ not Paris Hilton, ‘…for what appears to be favoritism in the early release of Paris Hilton. ‘Though I have nothing but empathy for Ms. Hilton whom I have met and appeared with on Saturday Night Live the night I hosted in 2003…” He has to throw in there that he knows her, that he hosted SNL with her, and to make sure, ‘Hey, Paris, honey, I’m not mad at you. I like you and I want to see you again and I want to be on TV with you again.’
Then he continues the statement, ‘…this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color. There are any number of cases of people who handle being incarcerated badly and even have health conditions that are not released. I have served several sentences for civil rights and civil disobedience actions and I even fasted which caused health concerns to prison authorities who paid for a doctor to come see me daily rather than release me. This act smacks of the double standards that many of us raise.” (Laughing.) Snerdley is standing up, ‘I told you!’ Well, now it’s a story. The Reverend Sharpton’s involved, it is a story. I don’t know, folks. Something about this just had me cracking up all day watching the Drive-Bys go nuts with this.
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RUSH: Jimmy in Wichita, Kansas, you’re next on the EIB Network. Have about a minute here, can you squeeze it in?
CALLER: I can if you can.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: How you doing? I’m so glad to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Like you, my glass is always half full, and I always take a negative and turn it into a positive. So here’s my tip for the day if you’ll pass it on. I renamed this Kennedy-McCain bill to the Paris Hilton immigration act.
RUSH: The Kennedy to the Paris Hilton immigration act. Oh, because she’s getting amnesty here?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, you know, that’s not a bad thought. If you are pro this bill, you’ve gotta support what happened to Paris Hilton. Although, I mean in a legal sense, she hasn’t been released. Forty days of confinement in her mansion. If it’s like Martha Stewart, she was allowed to go to work in a grocery store? (interruption) Martha Stewart went to her — well, okay, Paris Hilton’s office is a nightclub, so we’ll see how that works out.
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RUSH: All right, there’s a website out there, Harvey Levin’s website, TMZ.com, it’s reporting, ladies and gentlemen, that Paris Hilton was released from jail for 40 days of house arrest because she was on the way to having a nervous breakdown in there. So they had to get her out of there. That’s what they’re reporting. I’ve seen rumors on this since this morning. Some of these rumors look like they came from inside the sheriff’s office, frankly. None of them were kind.