RUSH: CNBC is apparently going to be talking about my new contract extension with their roundtable group of experts. The topic is, ‘Am I worth it?’ (laughing) Yes. Yes, they are. Greetings. Welcome back. Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis. I really like hearing myself because I love saying what I believe, I love being right, and I love hearing myself be right in saying what I believe. You should try it. 800-282-2882. We’re doing Open Line Friday on Wednesday today. Jason Lewis will be here tomorrow. We’ve got a best-of show, a doozy, that will run on Friday, the Fourth of July. And so when we go to the phones today, whatever you want to talk about is fair game. The content of the program, when we go to the phones, is up to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, time to talk a little bit about the Democrat National Convention — (interruption) what do you mean? What am I going to talk about, is it worth it or am I worth it? How about a little basic econ 101. Do you remember the left attempted at one time to establish a policy, a program called ‘comparable worth,’ where they wanted themselves, they wanted the government to establish the value of various jobs, from teacher, to garbage collector, to what have you, because the left is totally absorbed with the equality of outcomes so that there won’t be any unfairness and all that. Their desire is actually more devious than that. But the concept of worth, people still may not understand this. Nobody is paying me this. This is earned. There’s this little thing called ownership, and it’s earned, and you are worth what you earn. If you undersell yourself and don’t charge the proper value for what you think you are, then you’re never going to get proper value, you’re never going to get accurate value. You know, one of the biggest problems in pricing for people who have a great product or service is to not underprice it too much because it might be perceived as not having a whole lot of value. I mean you can overprice things to the point that people aren’t going to go anywhere near it, for a host of reasons.
But in any way you want to discuss worth and value, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service, whether it’s a salary, you’re worth what somebody will give you for it, or you’re worth what you can earn doing it. So to sit here and pass judgment on is somebody worth this is a foolish question, and it is not applicable. Now, I know it comes up when Big Oil executives or some CEO of some failing company, leaves, gets a golden parachute, the $56 or $60 million or something, ‘He wasn’t worth that. I mean, the company went to hell. Why are they giving a big golden parachute?’ See, somebody thought he was, or she, and all it takes is one on a compensation committee or a majority of the compensation committee, and that’s that. This business of value and worth when you’re talking about individuals and what they earn is rooted in class envy more than anything else.
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RUSH: Arthur in Knoxville, Tennessee, you’re next as we go back to the phones here on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: What kind of position did you put the fairness freakos in now?
RUSH: What kind of position did I put the fairness freakos in now? You mean the people that are advocating for the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine?
CALLER: Where are they going to find anybody to match what you did?
RUSH: (laughing) Yeah.
CALLER: You cut their legs right out from under them, you did!
RUSH: The Fairness Doctrine as defined by finances. I hadn’t looked at it that way. I have had some people e-mail me today, Arthur. ‘You know, Rush, this is going to make you a bigger target, and this is just going to make the Fairness Doctrine advocates even more intent on shutting you down.’
CALLER: That doesn’t matter. Where they going to get the money to fight you?
RUSH: (laughing) Arthur, I like you. You just cut to the chase out there. You know, the Fairness Doctrine, this comes up and we talk about this every now and then. Now, Obama, I have to tell you, I’ve got the story in the stack. It’s from a couple of days ago. Obama says, or somebody in his campaign said, ‘We don’t care about the Fairness Doctrine. We got bigger fish to fry than that. We have no intention of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.’ Obama doesn’t have to say it because Nancy Pelosi has; a number of other Democrats have. But the Fairness Doctrine, they may try, folks, but, look: they’re not going to just be able to succeed with this overnight if they try it. They’re going to have all kinds of opposition and the kind of opposition that they fear most, and that’s going to be from you, the American people.
The American people are not going to put up with it. There’s too high a level, degree of sophistication now, understanding what would happen if the Fairness Doctrine were implemented and reinstated. The broadcast community, yes, it’s regulated by the FCC. But when I started my national radio show 1988, there were 125 radio stations doing talk. Today, some 20 years later, it’s over 1200. Now, that means that the talk format has withstood all the other downturns, formatically, in radio. You know, certain music formats are having trouble. A lot of formats are having trouble. Talk radio is not. The industry is just not going to sit around and let the Democrats make it worthless without a fight. It’s going to take much more than the snap of a finger or the waving of a magic wand to bring this about. I have no doubt the Democrats want to do it. I have no doubt that Nancy Pelosi wants to try it. They are typical in that way. They don’t want to put up with people that they disagree with. They don’t want to put up with criticism. They don’t want to engage it. They just want to silence it. What do you think political correctness is? Political correctness is nothing more than using intimidating tactics to make people shut up and not say things that liberals don’t want to hear, pure and simple.
Ed in Wheeling, West Virginia. (interruption)
What? Oh. (laughing) Snerdley just interrupted me, ladies and gentlemen, to describe for me what is being discussed about my new deal on CNBC. There’s somebody up there looks like Lex Luthor, and you say he’s upset? Really? Really upset? Really? Really? Lex Luthor on CNBC, and he’s really upset. Well, you look like you’re enjoying it in there. (laughter) I’m sure I know who it is. It’s Michael Wolff. Michael Wolff. He’s a New York journalist and he’s uninformed. He doesn’t know how these things work. He’s just jealous, angry. I heard in the commercial break, ‘I don’t know who would make this deal? It’s a stupid deal! Limbaugh is said to have been this great revival factor for conservatism. I don’t know if anybody’s seen the news lately, but conservatism is about over.’ (laughter) You just have to laugh at these people. Snerdley is laughing. He just couldn’t wait to tell me.
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RUSH: We’ve got a couple audio sound bites from CNBC, what we were just talking about. Here’s cut 18. This is the info babe, Amanda Drury, who is promoting the upcoming segment.
DRURY: And is Rush Limbaugh worth $400 million? Is anyone worth that? Well, that is what Clear Channel is reportedly paying for him for an eight-year contract. Should you be buying Clear Channel?
RUSH: (laughter) Am I worth it? Here’s Michael Wolff, the guy you thought was Lex Luthor. He’s beside himself He’s just beside himself! It’s a monster error.
WOLFF: I think it’s a monster error. I’m sitting here saying, ‘What are these people smoking?’ You know, the truth is that Rush Limbaugh has been, um, uh… He’s ridden the rise of conservatism for 25 years, and I — I don’t… Maybe nobody quite — quite has been following the news, but that’s coming to an end. It’s going to be over, and Rush Limbaugh, in a relatively short period of time, is going to look like a kind of really out-of-it oddity. And I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how someone could have made this deal.
RUSH: CNBC, if you keep this up; if you keep putting inane, ignorant people who have no understanding of how media works — if you keep putting them on to discuss me — I am going to buy your network and start doing things right or else shut it down.