RUSH: Back to the phones Temecula, California, this is Jake. I’m glad you called, sir, and welcome to Open Line Friday.
CALLER: Rush, I’d like to pose a challenge to you and 999 other listeners. I think four million is a great number. I think five is better. And my idea is, while you’re sitting around one evening, watching one of your preview movies, you will find one thousand autographed copies, certified of this letter, and allow one thousand of us citizens to contribute $1,000 each, and up the ante one more million dollars, and I will buy the first one.
RUSH: You don’t think that’d be a little overkill?
CALLER: I think you have a couple of days to do this. I think it’s a worthy cause, and I think a lot of us who don’t have $2 million wanted to make our statement, and I think a thousand dollars for me is a great statement.
RUSH: Hmm, that is an interesting idea. This is exactly what I was just talking about. I had no idea this is what you were going to say. All it says up here is, ‘Don’t end it. Another idea,’ and you are making the point I just made about the compassion in this country actually lying in the private sector and the desire to be involved in something like this. It’s a great idea. Let me ponder it. I cannot commit to it sitting here on the air because I just want to run it. I can’t find anything wrong with it, I just want to think about it, because, actually, it’s a good idea. You think we get a thousand people pay a thousand bucks for it?
CALLER: I think we could get it done probably in the next five days. Put it on the website, offer them an easy way to pay with their credit card. You’ll have a thousand people probably by next Friday.
RUSH: With my signature you think?
CALLER: And you can take your time and send them to us when you can.
RUSH: (laughter) Well, yeah. How gracious of you. All right, look, Jake —
CALLER: I’m going to hold on.
RUSH: You’re going to hold on? Oh, Snerdley wants to talk to you? What does he want your phone number for?
CALLER: He can take my name and address so I can send the first thousand dollars.
RUSH: Oh, I see. I see. I see. Okay, all right. Jake, don’t go away then. Mr. Snerdley will put you on hold. Great idea.
This is David in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Nice to have you with us.
CALLER: I love you, Rush, and that’s my way of saying ‘mega dittos.’ I think you do a great service for the United States. I think the only thing is that I would have to say (sigh) is that I think that you could reach more people. A lot of people turn you on and either like you or dislike you right off the bat.
RUSH: That’s kind of like Hillary Clinton.
CALLER: Yeah, kind of like that, except that I think I’m not sure if I would call it — I feel very confident in what I do also, and that’s what you come across as, but a lot of people take it as arrogance, or egomaniac, or something like that, and I’d just like to see you reach more people because there are more people that need to be reached or we wouldn’t have the problem with the Democrats right now.
RUSH: Well, what are you suggesting I do?
CALLER: (sigh) You know, I don’t really have an answer for you.
RUSH: Yes, you do, you’re just afraid to say it — after saying you’re so sure of yourself.
CALLER: Tone yourself down, I guess.
RUSH: There you go. You think I need to stop the arrogance, and the braggadocio, and the pompousness, and the bombast, and all that.
CALLER: No, and that’s not how I feel about you. It’s just — I say, I think a lot of people who turn you on for the first time feel that way sometimes, and I think that if you didn’t turn people off right off the bat —
RUSH: Let me ask you a question, then.
CALLER: Yes?
RUSH: How is it that 22 million people don’t?
CALLER: That don’t what?
RUSH: Think that.
CALLER: Oh! I don’t know.
RUSH: Well…
CALLER: Because they feel the same way as I do, they agree with you. They realize that you’re right so much of the time, but because —
RUSH: Yes, 98.8%. ‘Almost always right 98.8% of the time.’ Always mention the figure when you talk about my accuracy.
CALLER: I’m sorry: 98.8% of the time you’re right, and if more people out there would listen to you, they’d know you were right, and I think that by turning some people off — like I said, they either love you hate on you right off the bat and if you could get more people to love you and more people to listening to you, then we wouldn’t —
RUSH: Let me tell you something. I hear this somewhat. I don’t hear it a lot. I used to hear it in the early days of this program, but I hear it somewhat. You know, I’m being who I am here. This is showbiz and there’s a performance aspect to this. You know, this didn’t happen by accident here. You’re basically asking me to be boring.
CALLER: No!
RUSH: You’re asking me not to offend people who are waiting to be offended. See, I know who these people are, and I know exactly what the problem is. I’m going to say something here that will probably make you cringe internally, and wish I wouldn’t say it, because you think I’m going to be turning off potential audience members, but we live in a country of people, we are so affluent — this is why I have to laugh when people tell me we’re on the verge of a recession and so on. We are so affluent that people have so much time of themselves to make them the focus of their lives, themselves, and their feelings and whether they feel offended or whether they’re made nervous or what have you. Along comes somebody like me who’s confident, sure of myself. That’s going to intimidate a lot of people who don’t think in this case can be that sure of themselves, and there are a lot of people that think, ‘Well, there’s no black and white out there. There just aren’t my firm answers.’ People do not want to be considered closed-minded, and so they pass themselves off as nuanced. They see a lot of gray area. It’s moderates. These are people that really don’t stand for anything, and nothing that I do is going to make them stand for anything, because one thing you can’t do is stand down for my principles and stand down for the things I’m passionate about, and I actually think it’s a combination of passion and confidence that leads people to think that I have no humility. But the people like you who listen to this program regularly know that that’s not the case. I’ve warned people. It takes six weeks of steady listening to this program to get an understanding, a full understanding of exactly what all can happen on this program and how. I appreciate your thought, and I understand your desire that we reach more people — and that’s our objective, too. Make no mistake about it.