RUSH: Okay, it’s Open Line Friday, and that means making tracks to the little blinking lights here on the phones. You never know what lurks there, particularly on Open Line Friday. So Naples, Florida. Bob, you’re up. It’s great to have you here, sir. Hello.

CALLER: (bad cell connection) Hello, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: I’m pretty good. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Good. Rush, this morning I was listening to Fox News and Ed Rollins was on there. He was talking about the campaign, and he made a backhand remark about Sarah Palin not having much substance when she was the VP candidate. And it just kind of hit a raw nerve, and I was just wondering where —

RUSH: Wait. Did he…?

CALLER: (garbled)

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I didn’t see Rollins on Fox. Did he really say that?

CALLER: Yes, sir. They were talking about Ryan and he said, “The difference between Ryan and Sarah Palin is Ryan has more substance,” when he was talking about how much the VP was gonna help.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: So that —

RUSH: But wait a minute. The first thing you said was that Ed Rollins said Sarah Palin didn’t bring much substance. That’s different than saying Ryan has more.

CALLER: (silence) Well… (chuckles)

RUSH: I just want to get it straight. How truthful is it to say that Rollins insulted Palin? That’s how you took it?

CALLER: Yes, I did. Because he said that Ryan brings more than Sarah Palin did to the VP candidacy. So I just took that as a backhanded slap at her, and I just wondered based on —

RUSH: Ryan has more substance than Obama. Ryan has more substance than anybody!

CALLER: Well, he was referring to Sarah. So that’s what really kind of twisted my tail, but I was just wondering what’s going on. Where is she as far as this convention? Nobody is talking about why she’s not being asked to speak. Has she been just forced out or what?

RUSH: Well, I don’t know. She has written on her Facebook page about it, and it was somewhat vague. She simply said that she wasn’t going and that this convention was time to let others have the microphone. It didn’t seem that she was bitter. She did not say she had not been invited. She didn’t say that she’d turned down an invitation. So the best I know is that she’s just not going, but I don’t know why. And her Facebook post was not negative. The way I read it, she wasn’t bitter about it. She was trying to, in fact, be positive about the people who were gonna be there speaking.

CALLER: Well, I just was wondering, because, I mean, you take Bobby Jindal. I’m not knocking any of them. But none of these people could go anywhere like into Texas and pull for an underdog candidate like Sarah did and bring them up on the winning end of it.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: It just seems to me that they’ve just forgotten (garbled).

RUSH: Well, there is no question. See, this is what you know. This is what you bring to the equation. You know that the establishment Republicans don’t like her. You know that the Republican consultant community, the advisers to candidates, they don’t like her. The McCain people have tried to trash her. So you know all of that. And when she doesn’t go to the convention, you are assuming that they’re insulting her by not inviting her. It’s a logical assumption to make, except I don’t know that that’s what happened.

It’s a logical assumption to make that the establishment leaders of the party think she’s a big negative and don’t want her there, just like they think I’m a big negative and they wouldn’t want me there. “Because the independents get all riled up here and there’s a time and place for everybody. And at the convention, we don’t want Sarah Palin.” It’s natural to think that, but I don’t know that that’s case.

And I’m not covering for anybody. I just don’t know. I don’t know. To answer your question: No, I think she’s a plus wherever she goes, pure and simple. She is a net plus for the Republican Party, and she is working harder than any of them are to try to get decent, really qualified conservative candidates elected. And I think she doesn’t deserve the treatment she’s gotten in any way, shape, manner or form.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. I am told that Sarah Palin was offered a chance to speak at the convention but that they never were able to put together a specific day and time slot. So apparently she was offered a prime spot, but for some reason it never got past negotiations to an actual time slot and date. So that’s the best I can do.