RUSH: Fortuna, California. Hi, Denise. Tell me your last name is not Ilitch!
CALLER: (laughing) No, it’s not.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: It’s not. (laughing) You want to know my last name? I don’t think you do.
RUSH: No, no, no, no, no. You don’t want to give it.
CALLER: It’s not Ilitch.
RUSH: I would love to know your last name but for your own privacy, safety, security…
CALLER: For my own protection, no. We’re in Humboldt County, which I know is a liberal bastion and all that. But we’re in a little enclave here that’s very, very conservative.
RUSH: Let me tell you something, Denise. I have been to Humboldt County.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I have made two speeches in Humboldt County — two Rush to Excellence appearances in Humboldt County — one at Humboldt State.
CALLER: Oh! Where they had hairy armpits?
RUSH: (chuckling) Well, yeah, in the airport there was a woman —
CALLER: (laughing) Oh yes! You can always tell if they go to Humboldt State.
RUSH: — with her German shepherd guarding her that had hairy armpits. You’re exactly right.
CALLER: The girls have hairy armpits. The closer you get to us, the more southern you get, the more conservative they are — and in Fortuna, we don’t allow that.
RUSH: What do you mean the more southern you get? What do you mean southern in Humboldt County? What did I miss?
CALLER: Well, Fortuna is about 50 miles from the (garbled) and then the farther north you get —
RUSH: Oh! Oh! Oh! The more southern you get, oh. I thought you meant the more southern you get in attitude. I’m sorry. More southern part of the county.
CALLER: The more southern part of the county.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah.
CALLER: No telling about the real southern part of the county.
RUSH: No, I’m not kidding you. When I was in the airport at Humboldt County, when I was leaving there was an obviously militant feminist. She had this German Sheppard. You could spot this a mile away. I knew what was going on the moment I walked into the waiting room, hairy armpits and all. You’re exactly right.
CALLER: Yeah, see? Oh, yeah. It’s just wonderful. But in Fortuna, the sun shines.
RUSH: This woman was waiting to be attacked, and there was no chance.
CALLER: What?
RUSH: Never mind.
CALLER: Oh, okay.
RUSH: What is it that you called about?
CALLER: (crosstalk)
RUSH: You can’t hear me because of our state-of-the-art phone system.
CALLER: I don’t watch Jimmy Fallon but I saw excerpts on one of the programs that we do watch, and my skin started to crawl. And all I could equate that with was the Bill Clinton moment when they asked him, “Boxers or briefs?” And I thought, “Oh, my God this president has jumped the shark!” This may very well have been his moment, his low moment.
RUSH: I don’t know.
CALLER: I wanted to throw up or take a shower or both.
RUSH: I’ve had a lot of people, Denise, who have written me about Obama doing the slow-jamming of the news on the show. They had similar reactions to yours.
CALLER: Ugh!
RUSH: I didn’t see it. Like you, I’ve just seen excerpts, video clips of it. But I really have received a lot of e-mail from people who thought it was beneath the office, beneath the dignity of the office.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. I just can’t believe it. I truly can’t.
RUSH: Yeah. I don’t know if the Jimmy Fallon Show, I don’t know if there are enough people watching that for Obama to have jumped the shark on it.
CALLER: Yes. Yeah. No. Unbelievable. There’s enough people that know what “jump the shark” means, I hope. But, no, it was truly a unbelievable moment for me. My mouth dropped.
RUSH: Well, speaking of which, do you know what “jump the shark” means?
CALLER: Yes, I do.
RUSH: Tell me.
CALLER: (laughing) In Happy Days, when the Fonz… (snorts) Oh, Lord!
RUSH: The Fonz.
CALLER: When the Fonz, who always used to wear a leather jacket —
RUSH: Henry Winkler.
CALLER: — an awesome leather jacket which worked.
RUSH: Henry Winkler.
CALLER: It didn’t make any difference because it was cool. (crosstalk)
RUSH: This is so frustrating. Henry Winkler, the Fonz.
CALLER: Right. In one of the episodes, when I think they made a trip from whatever state they were in — it may have been Wisconsin; I’m not sure. They came to California, and he was going to jump over a shark on skis. But he had swimming trunks on and his leather jacket, and that was the moment that people refer to “jumping the shark,” and that was pretty much it. (laughing)
RUSH: Yeah, but what does it really mean?
CALLER: It means that was the end of Happy Days.
RUSH: That’s right! That’s exactly right.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: That episode, okay, jump the shark? They just went beyond. It was no longer was it believable. They went outside their formula too much.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And when Obama did that last night, the only thing — or whenever it was. That’s when I saw the excerpts. When the president did that, the only thing I could think of… The picture that I saw with Fallon in the foreground and the president in the middle, and then I guess the band was behind him and it was all dark and everything, would have been better if there had been a billowing of smoke and a big cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It was truly, truly nauseating.
RUSH: Well, we’ll see. As I say, I have a lot of e-mails from people who have that reaction. But I don’t want to make too much of the e-mails in terms of anecdotal analysis. I never do that, but I would never assume the whole country is having the same reaction that people e-mailing me are having, but people on… (interruption) Yeah. On TV, people remember what they see. There’s no question. But again, we have to look at where our culture is, and to a lot of people, Obama is not even “the president.” He just the biggest celebrity in the country, and that’s cool.
I mean, the whole concept of the presidency for a lot of young people is not some august, serious, highly respected, most-respected office. It’s the most powerful, but he’s the biggest celebrity of the United States, even more so than he is president of the United States. I mean, you can go all over Twitter today and read the people out there who thought the slow-jamming was great, because it’s new. “We’ve never seen a president do it before! It’s hip. He’s like us! He can relate to us.” There are people that have that reaction to it, too. I mean that’s where we are culturally.
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