RUSH: John in Indianapolis, great to have you, sir, on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Three times in a year, bro, lucky me.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Thank you. I’d like to say to my mother and father I love them, and they listen every day, and if it weren’t for them I’d be on the wrong side of dirt. What do you think about Larry King, Larry O’Kingbo hanging up the mic? Me personally, I’m going to miss him, kind of like Ted Kennedy, you know, all the great sound bites, and what about his choice —
RUSH: Well, he’s not really going away. He’s going to remain CNN host emeritus and do specials around big news events and so forth. He’s not riding off to the big microphone in the sky. He’s retiring but he’s going to be back like an elder statesman at CNN.
CALLER: But could you stand his choice of replacement, Ryan Seacrest? To me that makes me think of Louis Farrakhan spending another night at the White House.
RUSH: Well, I’m not sure that it’s going to be Ryan Seacrest. One of the names that’s been tossed around out there is Piers Morgan, who is a presenter and an interviewer from the UK, BBC or some British channel, and Katie Couric apparently was offered the job and turned it down. She didn’t want to be trailblazer twice, although interviewing is, they say, a more suitable use of her skills, ahem. What are some of the other names that have been tossed around out there? Ryan Seacrest, I’ve heard, Bob Costas, I’ve heard. I’ll tell you what’s interesting about this, is a story today in The Politico by Keach Hagey: ‘King To Step Down After 25 Years — His future at CNN in question since a recent string of weak ratings became a symbol for the network’s struggle to find its way in an increasingly ideologically divided cable landscape, Larry King, host of the longest-running continuously hosted show on a single network, announced Tuesday evening that he is hanging up his ‘nightly suspenders.’ King, 76, and CNN/US President Jon Klein made the announcement after weeks of tabloid reports about King’s possible successor. … In May, he scored his lowest ratings in 20 years lagging far behind MSNBC and Sean Hannity on Fox News. The ratings bounced back a bit in June, growing 28 percent on the previous month, according to Nielsen. But the movement to replace King was already well under way, according to a New York Times report last month.’
Now, I guess the upshot here of the story is it’s just too ideological out there for Larry to survive, as though Larry’s not ideological. Larry King is as liberal as they come, and he’s not afraid to show it. It’s just total BS. As this program was ascending to number one, Crossfire was plummeting, and you can’t get any more ideological than that. To say King is not ideological? Air America bombed out, never got off the ground, they were ideological. That’s not what’s going on here. He’s their ratings leader, what does it tell you? There’s big trouble over there. And now, folks, I haven’t commented on this ’cause it’s rather unseemly, but Eliot Spitzer, Client No. 9, a primetime show on CNN? You know, there are people throughout this business, highly trained broadcast specialists who are talented to one degree or another, and where does CNN go? To a bordello reject to find one half of an anchor team. I mean this is breathtakingly something, stupid, ignorant. Hell, Helen Thomas is available. I mean if King couldn’t cut it during the ideological trends of cable news, why, Helen Thomas is there, and we all know how telegenic she is. Put her in the mix for a potential replacement host for Larry King.