RUSH: A couple programming notes. The Hutch cannot appear today. I’ve been trying to get the Hutch on to discuss the championship games, and I’ve been e-mailing The Hutch for the past couple days, Ken Hutcherson, Dr. Ken Hutcherson, in Seattle. He is in eastern Washington killing birds. He is hunting. I think it’s birds. It could be mammals that trod the soil. Anyway, he’s out, away from civilization, will not be able to join us, but he will be here two weeks from today to discuss the Super Bowl, which is February 1st in Tampa. I’m going to do my picks. I’ll tell you right now it’s going to be the Steelers and the Cardinals. Yes, it will be the Steelers and the Cardinals in the Super Bowl. I’m going to be in Pittsburgh on Sunday for the championship game between the Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. Let’s see. Oh, yeah, Ann Coulter will be here at one o’clock to discuss her new book Guilty. I don’t know if you have seen any of her interviews so far on television, but they are predictable, they’re contentious and generally start off as some interviews with me start off, you’ll have Matt Lauer, or whoever, asking Ann Coulter essentially, ‘What gives you the right to breathe? What gives you the right to be alive?’ And the interview goes from there. It’s a serious book, with some serious stuff in it, and we’ll get into that.
Also, a programming note for all of our affiliates here on the EIB Network. Many of them have been asking us what our inauguration plans are, and all week long we’ve been doing our best to get in touch with all the affiliates, the management of our loyal and trustworthy affiliates to pass along the news. I figure the best way to do it is for me just to tell you. We are going to carry live, in its entirety, the oath of office. We will carry Obama’s speech. We’ll carry Biden’s speech, unless — they’re going to have to have some kind of a buzzer or bell to get Biden to shut up so this thing finishes on time, but we will carry live the inauguration address, the address by President-elect Barack Obama when it happens on Tuesday, and as we always do, we will be adding our live commentary as the speech is made. Many of our affiliates requested this, by the way. And another programming note, we will be blowing out commercial breaks during the period of time that President Barack Obama is delivering his inaugural address. We will not stop for commercial breaks. This is historic, and it would be inappropriate to go to our Profit Center time-outs during such a momentous occasion.
So we will be here broadcasting live, our microphones will be there. I checked ’em out already when I was in Washington on Tuesday, drove by there. It’s a Port-A-Potty farm. Dawn, you didn’t hear this yesterday, but a lot of Drive-By Media outlets have been calling asking me what I’m going to do for the inauguration, not professionally, but celebratory ways. I told ’em I’m going to get a Port-A-Potty in here, I’m going to pretend I’m in Washington, with a Port-A-Potty here in the studio and I’m going to use it every 15 minutes, which is what will be happening on the grounds of the US Capitol and elsewhere. You ought to see it. They say there are 6,000 of them, but it looks like more than that. They got them all locked now, you got the plastic stuff on them that a box cutter wouldn’t cut this stuff. You will not find any homeless people. The DC mayor is trying to get the homeless people out of the way. In fact, a little story on that, ‘Finding Havens for the Homeless,’ by Petula Dvorak in the Washington Post.
‘From the steam grates of Pennsylvania Avenue to the porticoes of the city’s grand buildings, homeless Washingtonians who live inside the nation’s tightest security zone are being encouraged to decamp during the inauguration for shelters in the city’s outer neighborhoods.’ In other words, clear out, scram. You are not wanted. You are not desired. The nation’s poorest, the nation’s neediest are being told to get the hell out of Dodge on this most historic of American days, the inauguration, the Immaculate Inauguration, might even shorten it to one word, the Immaculation of Barack Obama. I wrote it down the other night.