RUSH: Snerdley tells me that phone calls… We can’t put up nearly as many as we get every day. First, I asked him, because we’ve been getting a spate over the last couple or three days of liberal phone calls, liberal seminar callers. Actually, these haven’t been seminars. Seminars try to disguise who they are. These are flat-out, pedal-to-the-metal liberals. I began to think about this, and I have a theory going on here about what might be happening. 
You know, the Fairness Doctrine is out there, and the liberals are trying to get it reintroduced. Maurice Hinchey, Dennis Kucinich, any number of them are trying to get the Fairness Doctrine reinstituted, which, the long and short of it is, would basically end conservative talk radio for a host of reasons, which we have discussed on previous occasions. The theory that I think is going on is, I think the liberals are calling this show and a number of other conservative shows for the express purpose of either being interrupted, not being allowed to speak. They’ll come out with these outrageous, weird, insulting things that give a host no choice. You gotta move on, or you have to deal with these people in a substantive way. But regardless, they will then — they’re taking notes and all this, maybe even recording it — and they will either send the recordings or a report in a complaint to their congressman. “Well, I don’t know. I tried to call the Rush Limbaugh Show and I got hung up on. I was disconnected. I was yelled at and screamed at after only 30 seconds, I couldn’t explain what I wanted to say!”
I think there’s an ongoing campaign out there on the part of the left to try to build this notion that they can document, to send off to the FCC and other places, that they just don’t get a fair shake on conservative talk radio. Well, we will deal with that accordingly. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if I am right about this. Second thing about the Fairness Doctrine itself. Selwyn Duke, whose work we’ve been quoting recently here and somewhat frequently, has a piece at the AmericanThinker.com, with an interesting perspective on this. As I have pointed out constantly, we on talk radio are open and shut about who we are. You know what we believe. We make no bones about it! There’s no attempt to deceive when it comes to the expression of opinion or any of this, and as such there’s no reason for the Fairness Doctrine to be implemented. His point is that the real deceit in media today is the Drive-By Media, the real deceit is found in major media, what he calls “the shill media,” they are constantly shilling for liberals and Democrats, but they don’t admit it, and they hide behind all kinds of subtlety, and if there’s anything that needs to be balanced within its own confines, it’s the Drive-By Media.
As I’ve said: this show is equal time. This program is balanced to all the other lib media, Drive-By Media or whatever that is out there. I still think this is not going to go anyplace, but they’re not going to give up on it. If they win the White House in ’08, they probably will make a serious push for it, but it’s going to boil down to the American people. Will they just put up with it and say, “Okay, Fairness Doctrine! Fairness Doctrine!” and not argue about it? That’s what’s changed. The so-called new media, talk radio, the blogs, all this, they’ve got a sizeable percentage of the American people that routinely listen, watch and read, and they’re not just going to sit idly by. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you. That’s my theory why there spate of liberal calls, and of course not all about many of these liberals have been purposely provocative for the express purpose of having their time limited, and I think that’s being done on purpose anyway. So the best way — I’ve always found, the best way with liberals, the best way with journalists — to alter their behavior to the extent it can be done, is just challenge them.
“This is what you’re doing. I know your trick. I know what your purpose is.” I’ve gone through a learning curve in being interviewed by the media. I used to be na?ve and think they were actually interested in truth and this sort of thing, and what I said to them was actually something interesting to them and simply because I said it they would put it in, since they’d asked to talk to me. On the contrary, most of the stories are written in advance, the call is simply perfunctory to get some quotes that can be massaged or taken out of context. Since that’s happened, since I’ve learned this — and this is, you know, 20 years ago — when I suspect (which is mostly all the time) that there’s a hit piece involved, and I’m participating, I just tell them up front: “I know what you’re doing. I know how you’re going to go about doing it. I’m going to answer my questions accordingly.”
“I am not! How dare you!”
They can’t stand for me to be right about such things, and so the times I’ve employed that, there has been a reduction in the intensity of the hit piece. It’s still a hit piece, but nevertheless, I’m mentioning this because some of you people get upset when we take liberal phone calls. I happen to like it. I asked Snerdley, “Are we getting any today?” No, we haven’t had one. Well, we had one but the guy hung up after he insulted Snerdley. (Laughing.) He just insulted Snerdley and then hung up, and he’s probably going to say that the screener wouldn’t let him on the program or what have you. I’m sure this is part of an organized campaign out there designed to provide impetus behind the whole reenactment, reimplementation of the Fairness Doctrine.
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
