RUSH: Say, folks, I think we have a new acronym for the president of the United States. It’s no longer POTUS; it’s AKOTUS, Ass Kicker of the United States. Can you believe that? I’ll tell you what, this guy, President Obama, is giving Marxist professors a bad name. Well, reality always gets in the way of Marxism, and it is here.Anyway, folks, great to be back with you, Rush Limbaugh, cloud nine here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Great to have you here. The telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
So everybody has been saying, ‘What are you going to say about your wedding on the radio?’ And I said, ‘I really don’t know. I’ll figure out what to say when the microphone goes on.’ I never plan things. We do things improv here. The first thing I want to address is why I didn’t say anything about it in advance. You know, you and I in this audience for over 20 years, have had a familial relationship, and I read some of the e-mails before Kathryn and I left on our honeymoon. We left on Monday of last week, a week ago yesterday. And there were some e-mails, not a whole lot, ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you keep this a secret?’ Folks, there’s a very simple answer to this. For one, we wanted to not have this take place in public. We don’t want any kind of a circus atmosphere associated with any of this. Whether people believe it or not, I do not seek media attention, particularly in my private life. I want no part of it. We did a damn good job of keeping this thing under cover, under wraps up until the day before the thing was to take place.
If it weren’t for Zev Chafets’s book, other people of the media would not have known what was going on. The fact is that Zev Chafets in his book, Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One published the wedding date and some people went out and got the book and said, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ So the lid was blown, but even at that we did not provide any details because, folks, seriously, there’s no desire here to live this marriage, this relationship, in public, to have constant media attention to it. This was a private affair for Kathryn and me and 400 of our friends and associates. And I have to tell you, people have been telling me, people who were at the wedding on Saturday night had never seen me happier while I was waiting at the altar for Kathryn, and it took her forever, she took one step at a time. One step, pause, one step, pause, and I’m saying, ‘Come on! Come on!’ I’m hopping up and down up there at the altar. And everybody said, ‘You have never looked happier.’ Right, Snerdley? ‘You’ve never looked happier, never looked more radiant.
‘This was such a memorable affair. Nobody who was there will ever forget this if I do say so myself. I’m getting a bunch of echoes now from members of the highly overrated staff who were invited and who were there. A lot of people said, ‘Where’s the pictures?’ Same thing. We did not allow cameras. We allowed no cameras, no personal cameras, no personal video phones. The only pictures there are, are those taken by the four or five professionals that we hired to run around at the luau that we did on Friday night prior to the wedding on Saturday and then during the wedding, the reception dinner and the after-dinner concert. We haven’t seen the pictures yet. We just got back last night after stopping in Detroit to pick up sheepdog number two. We left Las Vegas at nine o’clock yesterday morning, got back last night after stopping in Detroit to pick up Wellesley. Wellesley is 13 weeks old. (interruption) What, Snerdley? Detroit’s where the breeder is. Yeah, they have these beautiful dogs in Detroit, outside Detroit.
Our wedding is the least transparent wedding ever, is the way to look at this. So we’ve got Wellesley now, 13 weeks, to go with Abbey. They haven’t met yet. That will happen this afternoon at five o’clock when we pick up Abbey from kindergarten. Yes, kindergarten, Abbey goes to a school. We haven’t seen Abbey in about ten days. I cannot wait for Abbey and this little sheepdog, Wellesley, two females, Punkin met the puppy last night, everything fine until the sheepdog started barking, and then Punkin ran for the hills. But it’s just fun. (interruption) No, the dog does not know how to read. What do you mean does the dog know how to read? (laughing) No, you mean Abbey, kindergarten. It’s a day care center that we call a school just for the fun of it. It’s culture enrichment for the dog. Anyway, we have our own terms for what we do with the animals here, but we love ’em.
Now, folks, a lot of you want to know about Kathryn. ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this?’ I’ve been on the radio here for 20 plus years, and a lot of what I’ve done in my private life has been lived in public, and I just decided, no more. We want to try to be as normal as we can. Now, we know that we’re not going to be able to live anonymously, but we can forestall some media attention by not seeking it, and we didn’t in this case. But I have known Kathryn for six years. I met Kathryn when she was running the foundation for Gary Player, and part of that job was to put together celebrity golf tournaments for Gary Player at various places. One of them was up at Wayne Huizenga’s course in Palm City, The Floridian. And for the first three years I went up there I never met Kathryn. It was always e-mail invitations, and I came to find out that she didn’t even want to invite me, that it took a friend of hers, ‘You gotta get Rush Limbaugh.’ She said, ‘Rush Limbaugh?’ She only knew of me as I was portrayed in public.
So the first time I actually saw Kathryn was at one of these golf tournaments and all the celebrities were sitting on white folding chairs near the sand trap where Seve Ballesteros was putting on a sand trap demonstration and botching it. Seve Ballesteros could not get out of the sand trap to save his life. It looked like me, and we’re all kind of looking at each other, I’m sitting next to Patrick Duffy of Dallas and I’m the last one on the right side of the row, and I feel a tap on my right shoulder. Well, when that happens you look to the right. When I looked right there was nobody there. Another tap, ‘Hi, I’m Kathryn.’ So I looked to my left finally and there she is in white slacks, long flowing blonde hair and I saw her from the rear first. She’s congratulating everybody else in line, saying hi to everybody, and one thing led to another, she ended up working for National Football League liaising with the local host committees for Super Bowls every year. It just built over time, over six years, and, folks, I know many of you have followed my life since we got to know each other, and I think — well, no, I know I got it right. Like Winston Churchill said, ‘Never, never, never give up.’
If you’re out there thinking all this kind of happiness is going to elude you, forget it. It will either slap you upside the face or you’ll find it one way or the other, and I hope that you find as much happiness as I have. I would love to tell you some of the details about the wedding, but I wouldn’t know where to start and I wouldn’t know where to stop. (interruption) Okay, Snerdley is saying start with the ceremony. But before I get — and, yes, we’re going to talk about Obama and the oil spill, we’re going to get to all that in due course, folks. I’m chomping at the bit here to get to all this because this is outrageous what we’re being set up for here. But this wedding has been in the planning stages or was in the planning stages from last September, and there were certain things that we both agreed to that we wanted. We wanted to put on a grand two-day party in our hometown here for our friends and associates. We wanted to do this and just blow it out, and we wanted everybody to have the best time they’ve ever had. Kathryn planned the entire thing, every detail.
You’ve heard that Elton John performed at the wedding. This is all true and I’ll tell you about that in just a second. You know, it is very instructive to find out that all of these supposed tolerant, loving, open-minded people on the left have given him such grief for performing at our wedding. He has really caught hell for this. He doesn’t care. We’ve been in contact with him, but he doesn’t care. It was amazing what he did. The performance that he put on for us, it was 75 minutes; it was specifically tailored to our circumstances. How we secured Elton John is an interesting story in and of itself which he told the assembled guests after his first song. He got a standing ovation when he came out. He got a standing ovation after every tune. He did an encore. He darted offstage after what we thought was his final song. Well, I knew he was coming back, he bounced right back, and the final song was Can You Feel the Love Tonight. He just had people enthralled. Very intimate, 420 people in a decorated ballroom to make it look like a lounge, people were on sofas, cocktail tables and chairs and so forth.
But to give you an example of the detail, while the concert was going on, all of our guests staying at The Breakers, the hotel, which is about 95% of them, we placed a CD of Elton John’s greatest hits on the pillow in their bedrooms with a personal note from us to each one of them, and people who were local, people who did not stay in the hotel, when their cars were fetched by the valet they were presented the Elton John CD and a personal note, the greatest hits CD. Every possible, imaginable detail that you could conceive was taken care of and dealt with and executed flawlessly. This whole weekend was the product of months of preparation, and the execution was just amazing. I’ve had people come up to me, guests there that were former producers for major networks, movie theaters, studios and so forth, ‘I’ve never seen a production like this. There has never been a wedding that we have been to, and there never will be. Any time anybody goes to a wedding from now on that was at yours, Rush, they are going to never forget yours.’ And it was memorable. We wanted to make everybody a part of it. We wanted everybody to feel they were there because we love ’em. Everybody there was there for a reason, because they mean something — even you, Snerdley, everybody was there because they meant something special to us. And I’m not trying to ladle this on to make you feel like, ‘Oh, what did I miss?’ I’m trying to share it with you after the fact. We did not want any news of this in advance. We didn’t want any prying eyes. We just didn’t want a circus atmosphere, which is the only reason why there was no advance notice of this from me.
Folks, it was just my desire — I don’t get to do this very much — to just have a couple of days as a private citizen with nobody knowing who I am or what I’m doing except the people who know us and love us. I gotta take a quick time-out here. We got a lot to do. There’s more to say about — is that enough, Snerdley? Kathryn, should I — oh, I haven’t talked about the ceremony, the Hutch. We had the color guard there. One of the guests came up to me the next morning in the hotel, we were having breakfast, ‘You know, you just blow everybody away. Here you are married by an African-American preacher, you’re serenaded by an openly gay popular music icon, and they say you’re the bigot.’ It was a magical week. I will never forget this. And all I had to do was show up and say ‘I do.’ I had to show up to the rehearsal dinner. I did a few little organizational things, but this was a production totally, 100% conceived, inspired, and executed by the bride. Even while she was doing bride stuff she was doing all this. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I never had one moment of doubt that it was all going to come off.
I’ve got confidence in Kathryn. Anything she says she’s going to do is going to happen. I’m striving to have her look at me that way now, that anything I say — (laughing) — anyway, quick time-out. We’ll be back. I’ll tell you a little about the ceremony, and then we’ll move on. And I’ll tell you how the Elton John thing came about since people who weren’t there are commenting on why he did it. It’s just been amazing to see all the criticism he’s gotten from his side of the aisle when we just elected a president who was all about unity, we were told, we’re supposed to join together, post-partisanship. Well, here was some giant, big-time unity on the evening of Saturday, June 5th, and who the hell is mad at it? The left. Yeah, it was a party, but it was a meaningful wedding, it was a heartfelt ceremony and so forth and everybody involved had a wonderful time. Yet these people have to run around and try to denigrate Elton John for deigning to do this. It’s very instructive, folks, very instructive about the left and who they really are and what they’re all about.
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RUSH: All right, the ceremony. As Snerdley describes it: ‘One moment you’re crying with joy and emotion, and the next minute you’re laughing yourself silly,’ and that roller coaster kept going up and down. We had four songs from Broadway musicals — The Phantom of the Opera, Jekyll & Hyde — and they were performed by genuine Broadway singers, Rob Evan and Lisa Vroman, and they were just fabulous. She sang at the dinner, and we actually brought out a color guard, saluted the military. Kathryn’s father’s a graduate of the Naval Academy with Senator McCain. He finished much higher than Senator McCain — and he didn’t know this, but we dedicated a portion of the wedding dinner to him, with Anchors Aweigh after the color guard and Lisa Vroman sang God Bless America that was just…
This is what Snerdley means. One moment you’re crying and the next moment you’re laughing. Simply can’t believe it. Kathryn and I wrote a paragraph to each other that The Hutch — Ken Hutcherson, the Reverend Dr. Hutcherson, who flew in from Seattle to perform the ceremony — read to the audience. We did not read them to each other. He read them. And during the vows, for example, the Hutch would say, ‘You repeat the vows,’ and say, ‘For richer and poorer,’ and I would say, ‘For richer and richer and richer and richer.’ He said, ‘For better or worse,’ and I said, ‘For better, for better, for better, for better — and worse.’ I whispered it. I was miked. My paragraph to Kathryn started out, ‘We’ve come a long way since you imposed the buddy rules,’ and a lot of people ask, ‘What were the buddy rules?’
It’s kind of self-explanatory. And my last line was, ‘May our Select Comfort mattress setting be the same forever,’ and the place was just going nuts. And, meanwhile, the Hutch said, ‘You know, these rings are a token, and there’s three tokens up here ’cause I’m one of them.’ (laughing) He said, ‘I’m the only black guy here that hasn’t been paid to be here,’ which was not true. (laughing) But people look at this and say, ‘What in the world is going on?’ and I looked at the audience when he said this. I said, ‘I’m sorry, folks. I should have warned you,’ and they’re laughing, and then they’re crying. Kathryn was escorted down the aisle by both her brother John and her father, because they both mean so much to her. They walked her halfway down; her father finished. I couldn’t wait for them to get to the altar.
They finally got to about ten feet, process was so slow so I finally just went out there, and I got rid of the father, and I grabbed Kathryn. I took her up to the altar and we started the ceremony. I couldn’t take my eye off of her during the whole thing. I never did, from the time she started walking down the aisle. I have people telling me you were bopping up and down up there waiting for her. ‘You had this giant smile on your face,’ which was true. All of that was true. I was delirious. And at the time the Hutch said, ‘And I now pronounce you husband and sla — uh, husband and wife,’ I went, ‘Yes! Yes!’ Two different times, and then we took our tour back down the aisle where we went for photos and everybody else went for the cocktail reception — which, of course, as the bride and groom you never get to because you have to do the photos and all that. We were supposed to be outside in the courtyard but it was very hot and humid so we did it in the circle room. It was a gorgeous room. Every venue, every venue was just perfect and well done. But it was a major, major production. And everybody who attended will attest to how flawless and seamless and huge and big and unique and surprising and unexpected it all came off, and it all happened because Kathryn did it. It was just amazing, folks.
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RUSH: Executing assigned host duties flawlessly, zero mistakes.
I want to tell you a little bit more about the wedding weekend because, frankly, folks, it was one of the happiest weekends — probably the happiest weekend — of my life, and I would much rather relive it than talk about Obama and what he’s going to do to damage and ruin this country. We got all year to talk about that. But I’m only going to have one occasion to tell you about this. This is it. Now, a lot of people told Kathryn — in fact I just got a note from H.R. up in New York that he and his wife Teresa said — she looked like Grace Kelly. I said, ‘Nope. Grace Kelly looks like Kathryn. We don’t know if we’re going to release a picture yet. This is all part of… (interruption) Snerdley… (laughing) Snerdley says, ‘You’ve gotta release a picture.’ We’re thinking about it, but, again, it’s not something that we have a firm idea on.
In fact Koko at the website asked, ‘You got a picture?’ I said, ‘No. Not yet.’ He wrote back, ‘Okay, okay, okay.’ We haven’t seen ’em yet. We were supposed to see ’em last night but we haven’t because we’ve been — well, understandably busy in the evenings (and some of the afternoons), ladies and gentlemen, for the past 10 or 12 days. Kathryn looked radiant, just beautiful. She shows up way at the end of the aisle, between all the rows of people. I’m going to go, ‘Whoa! Whoa,’ and people can see me going, ‘Whoa, whoa,’ and they’re ultimately looking at her and then looking at me for my reaction to it. But she was more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her — and that’s saying something, because she’s beautiful every day.
Now, the Elton John stuff. Let me tell you this how this happened. We told you that we put this whole thing into motion last September. In fact, we didn’t even announce the engagement. We got engaged October 3rd in Pittsburgh at LeMont. Pittsburgh has ties for both of us. It’s my first town away from home, my first place I attempted to succeed and didn’t. And so closing the loop in Pittsburgh: I may not have succeeded there, but I sure as hell did last October 3rd. LeMont’s on Mount Washington. It overlooks downtown Pittsburgh and the stadium. It was a Saturday night. The next night we were with Al Michaels and the NBC crew for the Chargers and Steelers and we’re on the sideline. Lynn Swann comes over and says hello. Kathryn’s got on the engagement rock, you know, and people are blinded by the light looking at it.
‘Well, what is that?’ ‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ A little disguise. It was just funny. So we started putting it all together, and Kathryn’s first request, her first hope, was to have Elton John. Now, when your bride-to-be says, ‘Gee, I really would like to get Elton John,’ you try to think of a way to make it happen. And I think, ‘Okay, how?’ (laughing) ‘How am I going to do this? Who am I going to get to broach it?’ I have since met his agent, Howard Rose, in Los Angeles. Michael Hewitson is another of his staff. We’ve made some really great new friends in this whole process. So in the process of starting the planning and trying to figure out how we can get Elton, we also had a couple of standbys that we were going to contact in case we couldn’t get Elton. Then last December we went to Hawaii.
As you know there was a health incident, a medical emergency for me — and it amazes me that that is still being reported as a heart attack even though I, with the doctor standing next to me, conducted a press conference with pulled all the reporters off of Obama. He was there at the same time. And I said, it was not a heart attack. The doctor said wasn’t a heart attack; we don’t know what it was. But there’s no arterial damage, no coronary disease. There’s no blockage. I was given an angiogram. It was actually good, a giant picture of health. But while we were there we were staying at the Kahala Hotel on Oahu, and when we had checked in the general manager, Thomas Pauly, had told us that Elton John was in the suite right above us. We still hadn’t resolved this, so I went out on our little patio deck ’cause his was right above, and I started singing Elton John songs standing there, hoping he would hear.
I’m singing, ‘Little Jeannieeee,’ and whatever Elton John songs I could think of, and didn’t hear a word. Then the medical emergency happens. I got back from the hospital after a couple-three days there, and the general manager of the Kahala, Thomas Pauly says, ‘Elton John was asking about you,’ and I said, ‘Was he hoping I didn’t survive?’ ‘No, no, no. He wanted to know if you were okay because he knew you were staying here.’ So a lightbulb went off, and I said, ‘Kathryn, write him a note. Write him a note and get Thomas Pauly to deliver it and say whatever you want,’ and she did. So she puts this note together explaining how much we both admire his music, his career, his talent, his achievements. She puts in two or three paragraphs about me that she wanted him to know that are unlike the media portrayal.
I had to come back home to resume work. She stayed in Hawaii for a couple of more weeks to be with her mother and her father over there. I’m checking my e-mails one night about a week later and the subject line from an e-mail from Kathryn says, in all caps, ‘WE GOT ELTON!!’ with two exclamation points. I wrote her back: ‘How did this happen?’ She told me what had happened and it transpired that he had gotten her note and somehow his agent had heard about it and somebody had talked to him, his agent or somebody, and said, ‘You won’t believe this,’ and he told this story before performing for us on Saturday night. He said, ‘You won’t believe this,’ and he described the offer. And the agent said, ‘Well, I know you won’t want to do it. How do you want to handle it?’ ‘Oh, no, no! I do. I most certainly do want to do this.’
I’m just ecstatic here because this is something from the get-go that Kathryn said she hoped would happen, and here it was. It was going to happen. From that time, I didn’t touch it. I laid off of it for a couple of weeks, and then wrote a note to Michael Hewitson, who is one of Elton’s confidantes, and thanked them profusely for accepting the gig, how honored we were for it, and Hewitson wrote back and said, ‘This is going to happen, Rush. This really is going to happen. Elton is actually looking forward to this.’ So I’m sitting there going, ‘I don’t believe this. It’s actually happened,’ during the whole process. This was in January. He moved some tour dates that he had for that weekend in Serbia. He rescheduled them for sometime later in order to be able to do this — and I’ll tell you something funny about this.
Three weeks before our wedding and his performance, I get this note from American Express. I’m a black card member. It’s an invitation on Sunday night, June the 6th, for an evening with Elton John in New York at the TimeWarner Center or Carnegie Hall or whatever and I’m looking at this and I said, ‘You mean to tell me that I coulda gone up to New York and taken Kathryn and heard him free of charge the next night?’ (laughing) I looked at this and I said, ‘This is unbelievable.’ So I wrote Hewitson and I said, ‘I can’t believe this. You guys are going to New York the next day?’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’re going to be coming in from Atlanta. We’ll do your gig we’ll fly back to Atlanta late Saturday night and head to New York for the American Express show on Sunday night.’
We met Elton backstage prior to the performance. He walked in, gave me a hug, gave Kathryn a big hug, invited us to dinner at his home in London. He was dead serious about it, and we had just the greatest chat with him backstage. He told Kathryn that she reminded him of somebody in his life that was very beautiful, and we just had the greatest time. He could not have been friendlier. You know, I asked him a question. ‘You’re 63,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe the schedule you keep. I mean, you’re in Morocco one night, and you’re in Egypt — if they let you in. You’re touring, you’re doing Vegas. Do you ever get tired?’ He said, ‘No. What would I do? What would you do if you quit, just play golf?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s true.’ ‘Rush, we’re doing what we love. There’s no reason to stop. I’m enjoying every minute of it.’
So he goes out, he does the performance, comes out, sings a song and then tells the story that I just told you about how it happened. Now, we did get worried on the Friday before the wedding cause it leaked out as a rumor that it was Elton John. I sent Elton’s camp an e-mail and said, ‘Okay, it’s leaked out here.’ ‘No problem, Rush! We’re going to be there. It’s not a problem whatsoever. We can’t wait to get there. We’re looking forward to it. In our invitations and the conversations, all of our guests had been making bets as to who the entertainment was. They asked, ‘Paul McCartney?’ Vince Flynn said to me the week before the wedding, ‘Look my Secret Service contacts have told me that after the White House Paul McCartney is booked on a plane to Palm Beach,’ and I said, ‘Well, he’s welcome to come to Palm Beach but he’s not invited to our wedding.’
Everybody was trying to figure it out. It was Bon Jovi; Jimmy Buffett; Earth, Wind and Fire; Rolling Stones; and nobody — nobody in the weeks leading up to it, nobody — guessed it. Not one person guessed it. And Flynn said, ‘I know somebody’s guessed it and you’re just lying. You know you’re just using stonewalls.’ I said, ‘Vince, nobody’s guessed it.’ Then Friday night at the luau, I’m talking to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, and he guessed it,’ and I had to put on my stone face. I just started laughing. ‘What?’ I said, ‘Mr. Justice Thomas, what in the world would make you think it’s Elton John?’ And he just started his big belly laugh and so forth.’ So I thought, ‘I hope I pulled off this poker face.’ Then it leaks. What was it, Friday morning or Saturday morning? Whatever it was, it leaked to the newspaper, and a lot of the guests were somewhat disappointed that the surprise had leaked out.
But not all of them knew it, which stunned me. They were still taking bets that maybe it was a feint, that it was a head fake that was part of our plan to keep the entertainment secret. H.R. read it in the paper and he didn’t believe it. A lot of people didn’t believe it. So it came time to leave the dinner and dancing and go into the Ponce de Leon ballroom, which was set out for Elton John’s performance: A single piano with a synthesizer. It was amazing, by the way, in a one man show what he was able to do with a piano and the synthesizer keyboard. But regardless, we had the stage obscured by drop curtains, and they told me, ‘You announce it when you see the curtains fall. So I stood up there, microphone in hand, curtains dropped. I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Elton John.’ And the room stood up en masse for a standing ovation.
He came out and you could tell he was a little surprised that he got a standing ovation from this crowd — and after every song he got a standing O. What did he do, ten songs I think in the 75 minutes. He actually went an hour and 20 minutes, supposed to be an hour and ten. And it ended then the after party began, went on ’til about two o’clock, and that’s when all the guests said, ‘It’s never stopped. Every moment, every venue has been bigger than the preceding one. This has been the greatest thing we’ve ever been to,’ and I have to tell you, folks, it was for me, too. This was the greatest weekend of my life. I said to Kathryn, ‘At heart, I’m just this little hick kid from southeast Missouri, and look what happened here this weekend? I got you, I have 400 of our closest friends and associates here to see it. Elton John showed up.’
Then we left and we’ve been tracking all of the really snarky comments that he was getting from people supposedly friendly with him on his side of the aisle. As I said earlier: It was very, very instructive to watch this, the people who want unity and who want togetherness. He said it when he came out. He told the people, ‘You might be surprised to see me here.’ He said, ‘Why do you think I’m here? Because I want to build bridges. I want to build bridges. I don’t want to erect walls. I’m all about knocking down walls.’ Another standing ovation when he said that. He was clearly having a great time. He was applauding himself after each song, got up from the piano, walked the full length of the stage, greet everybody, clapped for himself. People were waving candles like it was an outdoor concert. People were standing up in the aisles and dancing. It was a once in a lifetime thrill, and that’s what it was supposed to be: Something once in a lifetime. And it was. Kathryn and I… Well, I know it’s true for her, too. I’ve never been happier. I know it’s true for me, and I can tell same thing with her. But she did a most remarkable job of putting all this together from the Broadway singers to Sir Elton. She’s the one that secured Elton, her letter to him while we were in the hotel. There’s no question about it. Clearly he fell for her, and he was smitten with her backstage before the concert as is everybody who meets her. Very, very true.
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RUSH: Some confusion in the e-mail. ‘Rush, who performed your wedding ceremony, Clarence Thomas or Reverend Hutcherson?’ It was Reverend Hutcherson. Somebody who was uninformed did leak that it was Clarence Thomas that performed the ceremony. It was not the case. It was Reverend Hutcherson from Seattle. The Hutch, you’ve heard him on the program as we discuss football. My Uncle Steve performed the first half of the ceremony. As someone out of state, a federal judge out of state, he was not allowed to solemnify, but we wanted a family member as part of the ceremony, so Uncle Steve led it off, and then the Hutch, in his own inimitable way secured the deal.
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RUSH: Folks, I have to read something to you here that I just got. One of our guests at the wedding was Jim Zorn and his wife Joy. Jim is the former head coach of the Washington Redskins, now the quarterbacks coach for the Baltimore Ravens, and he’s a close friend of the Hutch from their days mutually back in Seattle. He said, ‘Dear Rush: I’m listening and enjoying your description of the entire weekend. Although you’re doing a great job, absolutely nothing will accurately describe what really took place and what an imprint Joy and I have and will for years to come thinking about you and Kathryn. It’s gonna take me a few of these notes to fully say thanks and express the pure joy that we had. Say hi to your bride. Sincerely, Jim Zorn.’
I have to tell you one more funny story about Elton John and then we’ll move on. By the way, before I tell the funny story, one thing that perplexes me is, you know, I’ve been playing Elton John records on the radio. I started in radio as a deejay 1967, ’68, I remember playing Your Song by Elton John in 1972. I’m stunned that people would think it would be odd that we would want Elton John to perform at the wedding. Who wouldn’t? You know, I’ve said constantly it’s the left that looks at people and puts them in a group and then defines them thus. Elton John’s not a gay man to me; Elton John is the premiere performer of his generation. He is the best at what he does. He still is. The personal aspects of his life, it’s silly to shut people out of your life because of such silly little reasons. He’s a great performer. We wanted him there for that reason alone. We’ve gotten to know him very well. He is a genuinely pleasant, unassuming, nice person.
One of the perks I’ve often said of my success all my life has been able to meet the people who are the best at what they do. And he’s one added to the list. Back in, I guess it was March, I’m sitting here in the morning doing show prep, getting ready for that day’s busy broadcast, and all of a sudden Brian comes storming in here and says, ‘There’s somebody on the phone, some practical joker says he’s Elton John.’ And I said, ‘Brian, you did not get this call. You do not remember.’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, now it’s out.’ And Brian had told Dawn, and Dawn and James said, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ So I went to them and I said, ‘You guys, you don’t know anything. You forget it, it didn’t happen, that phone call didn’t happen.’ Well, I found out later Elton John’s on the phone with Brian and Brian doesn’t believe it. He’s accusing him of being a practical joker and wasting his time.
So Elton John actually started singing on the phone to Brian to try to prove to him that it was Elton John and Brian still didn’t believe it. But finally something compelled him to come in here and tell me that it was Elton John, so I picked up the phone and he said, ‘Hi, I’m in New York, your guy didn’t believe it was me.’ (laughing) ‘I’m not surprised. Nobody knows that you’re involved in this, even on my highest levels of my staff.’ So I asked, ‘What did he sing to you, Brian?’ You don’t remember it, right? You have no idea what the tune was. And I’m thinking, ‘Here’s Elton John on the phone singing to my broadcast engineer to try to prove to him that it is indeed Elton John.’ It is very tight security. I mean I can’t complain about the security aspect of it, but I mean that’s just hilarious.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Poplar Bluff, Missouri — not far from my hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri — it’s Craig. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hey. Great to talk to you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Congratulations to you and Kathryn.
RUSH: Appreciate that.
CALLER: You describe it so vividly, as if we were there. Really appreciate that.
RUSH: Well, you know, it’s one of the things I wish everybody could have been there. If there were a venue, we woulda done it.
CALLER: Yes, sir. And your choice for host, you do a very good job in that. They filled in great, especially the guy yesterday. I can’t pronounce his name but he did a very good job filling in for you.
RUSH: Yeah, Mr. Urbanski.
CALLER: Yes, sir. He did a very good job.
RUSH: I got a lot of e-mail about Urbanski, pro and con, which tells me he did a good job.
CALLER: He did. He really did. All your hosts that you have fill in, I don’t know how you pick ’em, but they seem to do a very good job filling in for you.
RUSH: Well, you know, it’s a thinning pool. Everybody that guest hosts gets their own show at some point. So we dig deep out there. A lot of people ask, ‘Where was Mark Steyn?’ Steyn, I think, was on vacation last week. He was unavailable. But I appreciate your comment on the guest hosts. You know, there isn’t another me. We strive to find the other me, and it’s tough and these guys are work very hard at it, and I appreciate your acknowledging that.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Hey, Rush, we have air show coming up over here in Cape. Do you think you can fly by EIB 1?
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: Are there going to be any surface-to-air missiles at that air show?
CALLER: I hope not. (laughing)
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing)
CALLER: But it would be awesome to see you up there with the Blue Angels.
RUSH: That would be cool.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: Craig, thanks much for the call. I appreciate it.
CALLER: All right, sir.
RUSH: I really do.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, before we have to get outta here today, a couple more things about the wedding, which I meant to mention in the first hour. And, by the way, I did not intend for my recounting of it and the description to take the entire first hour. I’m glad it did because it was a thrill reliving it. And I just got a note from a friend, ‘No one can stop talking about your wedding, no one. I’ll never forget it. So wonderful.’ Snerdley came in here, he was in tears just talking about the wedding. But we are so appreciative, Kathryn and I both, everybody who came from all over the country to be with us. I’ve always said that life, when you look back on your life, no matter what you have accumulated and no matter what you have acquired and achieved, life is about people and friends and the relationships you have with the people you love. That’s what life is all about, and when you look back, the nostalgic moments, the warm moments of your life always will be about that, always will be about relationships that you had with people that you love, always will be about events that you have experienced with people that you love. And so I would be remiss if I didn’t thank everybody who showed up ’cause it made our weekend for us.
Also — and we happened to see this on television and heard it later on radio. Apparently Joy Behar just went off on Elton John on The View, calling him greedy. Somebody called him ‘a whore.’ And Megyn Kelly, who was there at the wedding with her husband, Doug, took Joy Behar to the bank in setting this straight. So I wanted to thank her for getting the truth out about what happened down there. Mark Levin did the same thing and Sean Hannity spent a lot of time on his radio show on the following Monday talking about it. As I say, it was quite instructive to listen to people who weren’t there act as experts as to why any aspect of it had happened, the insults that people who would normally love and adore Elton John that were thrown at him by these same people, very, very instructive. Very instructive for anybody to learn truly about who the left happens to be.